Bio

Raaj Narayan is a Partner at Wachtell Lipton in the Corporate Department. He focuses on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets transactions, takeover and shareholder activism defense, and corporate governance matters. He represents public and private companies and private equity funds on a wide range of domestic and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, spin-offs, investments, joint ventures, initial public offerings and other securities offerings. Based in Silicon Valley, he represents companies and investors across industries, with a substantial portion of his practice involving technology, fintech and financial services companies. Mr. Narayan has been named a 2022 Dealmaker of the Year by The American Lawyer and a Rising Star by Law360, Expert Guides and Euromoney. He is a member of the Stanford Law School Board of Visitors. Selected M&A transactions include Nielsen in its sale to a private equity consortium and the prior sale of its Global Connect business to Advent International; SoFi in its merger with Social Capital Hedosophia V and acquisitions of Technisys and Golden Pacific Bancorp; eBay in its sale of eBay Classifieds to Adevinta and its sale of StubHub to Viagogo; HP Inc. in its successful defense against a hostile takeover bid by Xerox; salesforce.com in its acquisitions of Tableau Software and MuleSoft; Hewlett Packard Enterprise in its acquisition of Cray and its Reverse Morris Trust transaction combining its Software Business with Micro Focus International; Mondelēz in its acquisitions of Hu Products and Give & Go; Envision Healthcare in its sale to KKR; Financial Engines in its sale to Hellman & Friedman; AOL in its sale to Verizon and acquisition of Millennial Media; The Carlyle Group in its acquisitions of Duff & Phelps and CFGI; GTECH in its acquisition of International Game Technology; International Game Technology in its sale of DoubleDown to DoubleU Games; Wells Fargo in the sale of its Health Savings Account Business to UnitedHealth and its Shareowner Services Business to Equiniti; Capital One in its acquisitions of ING Direct USA, GE Capital’s Healthcare Finance Business, HSBC’s Domestic Credit Card Business, Cabela’s credit card program and Walmart’s credit card program; Final in the sale of its assets to Goldman Sachs; Teneo in its investments by CVC Capital Partners and BC Partners, as well as numerous acquisitions; Cantor Fitzgerald in its sale of Berkeley Point to BGC Partners; the Cleveland Browns in its sale to Jimmy Haslam; the Aston Villa Football Club in its sale to Recon Group; Atlas Energy in its sale to Chevron; Ventas in its acquisition of Atria Senior Living; Knight Capital in its merger with GETCO; Itaú Unibanco in the merger of its Chilean and Colombian operations with CorpBanca; and numerous financial institutions in M&A transactions. Selected spin-off transactions include Hewlett-Packard Company in its separation into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Nielsen in its announced spin-off of its Global Connect business; Agilent Technologies in its spinoff of Keysight Technologies; BGC Partners in its spinoff of Newmark; and Atlas Energy in its spinoff of Atlas Resources Partners. Selected SPAC transactions include SoFi in its going-public transaction through a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. V; Ginkgo Bioworks in its going-public transaction through a merger with Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp.; Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp. I in its initial public offering and merger with Akili; Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp. II in its initial public offering; Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp. III in its initial public offering and business combination with ProKidney; and Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp. IV in its initial public offering. Selected capital raising and investment transactions include Square, Santander Consumer USA, Newmark and National MI in their initial public offerings; salesforce.com in its initial notes offering; Keysight Technologies in its initial notes offering; LTK in its preferred stock financing led by SoftBank; SoFi in its preferred stock financings led by T. Rowe Price, QIA and Silver Lake Partners, and subsequent public offerings; Knight Capital in its preferred stock financing; Warburg Pincus in its investment in Varo Money; CardWorks in its investments by PIMCO, Parthenon Capital Partners and Reverence Capital Partners; Rialto Capital in its venture investments; and Mondelēz in its venture investments. Mr. Narayan received a B.A. cum laude from Yale University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he was a member of the Stanford Law Review and the Stanford Law & Policy Review. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the State Bar of California.