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Image: Eric Schiele

Eric Schiele

Partner, Corporate Department

Overview

Eric Schiele is co-chair of Paul Hastings' Mergers & Acquisitions practice and is based in the firm’s New York office. He focuses on M&A and public company board and special committee advisory work. He has advised on approximately $1.5 trillion in announced deals.

Eric has been repeatedly recognized as a leader in his field by numerous publications, including Chambers USA and Chambers Global, Legal 500 and IFLR1000. He was profiled by Insider as one of 29 lawyers “leading the way on billion-dollar deals,” named a Law360 MVP and listed among the 500 Leading Lawyers in America by Lawdragon. He was also a finalist for The American Lawyer’s Corporate Lawyer of the Year award. In 2024, Eric ranked No. 5 on MergerLink’s list of top M&A dealmakers for total deal value. 

Eric's 25-plus years of experience representing leading multinational corporations, boards of directors and special committees on a wide range of corporate matters, including mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs and split-offs, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, activism defense and takeover defense, span diverse industries such as food and beverage, healthcare and life sciences, industrials, media/sports, real estate and hospitality, technology and telecom, retail and insurance.

Corporate clients that Eric has represented include AbbVie, Amcor, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Carlisle Companies, Constellation Brands, Disney, DreamWorks Animation, Fox, GlaxoSmithKline, H.J. Heinz, Honeywell, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, Kellanova, McDonald’s, Northrop Grumman, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Taubman Centers, The Washington Post, Time Warner, Toll Brothers, Wynn Resorts, Xerox, Yahoo! and Zale. He also has extensive experience in hedge fund activism defense, including against Carl Icahn, Elliott Management, Greenlight Capital, Relational, Starboard Value and Trian.

Accolades

  • Corporate/M&A (International & Cross-Border) – USA, Chambers Global
  • Corporate/M&A – New York, Chambers USA
  • America’s Top Lawyers, Forbes
  • America’s Top M&A Lawyers, Forbes
  • Mergers & Acquisitions – U.S., IFLR1000
  • 500 Leading Lawyers in America, Lawdragon
  • Legal 500
  • Profiled as one of only 29 lawyers in the world “leading the way on billion-dollar deals,” Business Insider
  • Finalist, Corporate Lawyer of the Year, The American Lawyer
  • #5, Top M&A Dealmakers for Total Deal Value, MergerLink
  • Leading Dealmaker, The Wall Street Journal
  • M&A MVP, Law360

Education

  • The University of Texas at Austin School of Law, J.D. (Highest Honors), 2000 (Associate Editor, The Texas Law Review)
  • Ohio Wesleyan University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1996

Representations

Food & Beverage

  • Kellanova in its $35.9 billion sale to Mars.
  • Kellogg in the separation of its North American cereal business, resulting in two independent public companies, WK Kellogg Co. and Kellanova.
  • Constellation Brands in connection with its stock declassification.
  • Constellation Brands in connection with its cooperation and information sharing agreements with Elliott Management.
  • McDonald’s in its sale of Dynamic Yield to Mastercard.
  • McDonald’s in its sale of McD Tech Labs to IBM.
  • Cambridge Franchise Holdings in its business combination with Carrols Restaurant Group.
  • Anheuser‑Busch InBev in its $123 billion acquisition of SABMiller and the $12 billion sale of SABMiller’s U.S. and global Miller branded businesses to Molson Coors.
  • H.J. Heinz and 3G Capital in Heinz’s $60 billion merger with Kraft Foods Group to form The Kraft Heinz Company.
  • Mondelez in its engagement and settlement with Trian.
  • Starbucks in its $620 million acquisition of Teavana.
  • Mondelez in its $30 billion spin‑off of Kraft.

Healthcare and Life Sciences

  • Ligand in its acquisition of Xoma.
  • AbbVie in its $8.7 billion acquisition of Cerevel Therapeutics.
  • Owens & Minor in its proposed $1.4 billion acquisition of Rotech Healthcare Holdings (which was withdrawn).
  • Owens & Minor in its $1.6 billion acquisition of Apria.
  • Owens & Minor in its disposition of its Products & Healthcare Services segment.
  • AbbVie in its $550 million acquisition of Soliton.
  • AbbVie in its $83 billion acquisition of Allergan.
  • Bristol-Myers Squibb in its proxy fight with Starboard Value in connection with its $90 billion acquisition of Celgene.
  • GlaxoSmithKline in its $12.7 billion joint venture with Pfizer to combine their consumer health businesses.
  • Hologic in its engagement and settlement with Carl Icahn.
  • Johnson & Johnson in its $430 million acquisition of Omrix Biopharmaceuticals.
  • Biovail in its financing in connection with its $3.3 billion merger‑of‑equals with Valeant Pharmaceuticals and its $200 million acquisition of the worldwide tetrabenazine business of Cambridge Labs.

Industrials

  • Amcor in its $37 billion merger with Berry Global.
  • Carlisle Companies in the $2.025 billion sale of Carlisle Interconnect Technologies to Amphenol.
  • Carlisle Companies in its $1.575 billion acquisition of Henry Company.
  • Amcor in its $6.8 billion acquisition of Bemis.
  • Polestar Performance AB in its $20 billion combination with Gores Guggenheim .
  • Delphi Technologies in its $3.3 billion sale to BorgWarner.
  • Investindustrial in its voting agreement and $253 million sale of Knoll preferred stock to Herman Miller in connection with Herman Miller’s $1.8 billion acquisition of Knoll.
  • TDR Capital, as controlling stockholder of WillScot, in the $6.6 billion combination of WillScot and Mobile Mini.
  • Honeywell in its $90 billion proposal to acquire United Technologies (which was withdrawn) and its $300 million sale of Honeywell Technology Solutions to KBR.
  • Northrop Grumman in its $9.2 billion acquisition of Orbital ATK.
  • Honeywell in its spin‑off of AdvanSix.
  • Jacobs Private Equity in its control-PIPE acquisition (the first of its kind) of XPO Logistics.
  • Chevron in its contested $18 billion acquisition of Unocal.

Media,Sports and Gaming

  • DoubleVerify, the industry’s leading media effectiveness platform, in its $2.15 billion sale to Nielsen.
  • Fox in the proposed combination of Fox and News Corp. (which was withdrawn).
  • Tribune Publishing in its cooperation agreement with Alden Global Capital.
  • Centerview Partners and Lazard in their capacities as financial advisers to the special committee of CBS in connection with its $48 billion combination with Viacom.
  • Wynn Resorts in its proposed $3.2 billion combination of its Wynn Interactive business with Austerlitz Acquisition.
  • Wynn Resorts in its sales of its Michigan iGaming Operations to Caesars Entertainment and its Mobile Sports Wagering Licenses in New York to PENN Entertainment.
  • Wynn Resorts in its acquisition of Betbull.
  • Sonic Financial in its $1 billion take-private acquisition of Speedway Motorsports.
  • Disney in its $66 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox.
  • Time Warner on a number of M&A transactions, including its $109 billion sale to AT&T, the unsolicited $80 billion proposal from 21st Century Fox to acquire Time Warner (which was withdrawn) and its $735 million acquisition of 100% of truTV.
  • DreamWorks Animation in its $4.1 billion sale to Comcast, its acquisition of Classic Media and the formation of the Oriental DreamWorks partnership with China Media Capital and Shanghai Media Group.
  • The Washington Post Company in the $250 million sale of The Washington Post newspaper to Jeff Bezos.
  • Time in the sale of its Parenting Group, Time4 Media and Grupo Expansión businesses, and in its acquisition of QSP.
  • Time Warner in its spin‑off of Time Inc.
  • Graham Holdings in its $1.1 billion split‑off of WPLG to Berkshire Hathaway.
  • Turner Broadcasting in its $1.5 billion split‑off of the Atlanta Braves to Liberty Media.

Real Estate and Hospitality

  • The Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Safehold in connection with Safehold’s strategic merger with its controlling shareholder iStar and related spinoff of iStar assets into a new publicly traded company.
  • Wynn Resorts in its $1.7 billion sale of the land and real estate assets of Encore Boston Harbor to Realty Income.
  • TDR Capital in its offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Target Hospitality not owned by TDR or its affiliates.
  • Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings in its engagement and cooperation agreement with Elliot Management.
  • Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings in its PIPE investment from L Catterton as part of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings’ multi-tranche financing for aggregate proceeds of $2.4 billion.
  • The Special Committee of the Board of Directors of Taubman Centers in Taubman’s $9.8 billion merger and joint venture with Simon Property Group.
  • Wynn Resorts in its engagement and settlement agreement with shareholder Elaine Wynn.
  • The transaction committee of the board of directors of Norwegian Cruise Line in the $3 billion acquisition of Prestige Cruises International by Norwegian.
  • Toll Brothers in its $1.6 billion acquisition of the home building business of Shapell Industries.

Technology & Telecom

  • A majority of the lead consortium members in an investment in TikTok USDS Joint Venture.
  • Pioneer Merger in its proposed $2.2 billion combination with Acorns Grow.
  • The Strategic Review Committee of the Board of Directors of Yahoo! in the $4.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo!’s operating business by Verizon.
  • Sapient in its $3.7 billion acquisition by Publicis.
  • Cable ONE in its $735 million acquisition of NewWave Communications.
  • Graham Holdings in its spin‑off of Cable ONE.
  • IBM in a number of public and private transactions with an aggregate value of approximately $5.0 billion, including its acquisitions of SoftLayer Technologies, Ascential and Micromuse and the sale of its worldwide customer care business process outsourcing services business to SYNNEX, as well as in the formation of Open Invention Network.
  • Xerox in its spin‑off of Conduent.
  • Time Warner in its spin‑offs of AOL and Time Warner Cable.
  • The Board of Directors of MCI in connection with the contested $8.5 billion acquisition of MCI by Verizon.
  • Sprint in its $35 billion merger with Nextel.

Retail

  • Express in its strategic partnership with WHP Global and in its agreement with WHP to acquire Bonobos from Walmart.
  • Zale in its $1.5 billion sale to Signet Jewelers and its related successful proxy fight with TIG Advisors, and in its PIPE financing with Golden Gate Capital.

Insurance

  • Accelerant, a leading data-driven risk exchange platform in the specialty insurance marketplace, in its sale to Thoma Bravo in an all-cash transaction with an enterprise value of more than $4 billion.
  • Montpelier Re Holdings in its $1.8 billion acquisition by Endurance Specialty Holdings.
  • Flagstone Reinsurance in its $625 million sale to Validus.

Matters may have been handled prior to joining Paul Hastings.

Practice Areas

合併 & 買収

Entertainment, Sports & Media – Music Industry

Life Sciences & Healthcare


Languages

英語


Admissions

New York Bar


Education

The University of Texas School of Law, J.D. 2000

Ohio Wesleyan University, B.A. 1996