Valerie E. Stevens
Valerie Stevens is the managing partner of the Hodgson Russ New York City office and the leader of the firm’s Private Equity and Antitrust, Trade Regulation & Anticorruption Practices. She advises her clients on their most challenging transactions. Her work spans mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, internal reorganizations, and other transformative transactions across a variety of industries, including financial services, environmental services, manufacturing, construction services, and other regulated industries.
With nearly two decades of experience, Valerie guides clients through all stages of the transaction process. She is a hands-on practitioner, routinely representing private equity clients and platform companies as lead counsel in platform and follow-on acquisitions, as well as exit transactions. In addition, she regularly advises banks and financial services companies in the purchase and sale of assets and ancillary businesses. In this regard, Valerie has acted as lead counsel to various financial institutions in connection with asset purchases and divestitures and the acquisition and sale of non-bank business lines, with transaction values ranging from $150 million to $1 billion.
Once the deal is done, Valerie typically continues her representation of portfolio companies throughout the full investment lifecycle, serving as a trusted advisor to sponsor representatives and management teams on commercial operations and day-to-day risk management. Drawing on her deep and varied experience, she regularly negotiates operational and commercial agreements, supply and distribution arrangements, joint venture agreements, and other matters essential to achieving company growth objectives. In addition, she regularly provides clients with strategic guidance on a range of non-transactional issues, offering practical advice to help clients balance legal risk and business priorities.
Finally, Valerie has substantial experience counseling clients in a variety of antitrust matters, most notably pre-merger clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. She has also worked with clients to manage antitrust risk in the context of competitor collaborations, licensing, and distribution arrangements.
Representative Work
Valerie’s representative transactions include the following:
- U.S. counsel to sponsor-owned EU industrials business in connection with its sale to an EU publicly-traded buyer
- Represent selling equity holders in various platform acquisition transactions with private equity buyers in the consumer products, environmental services, and manufacturing industries, often continuing to act on behalf of the company following the private equity investment for future add-on transactions
- Acted on behalf of a financial institution in connection with the divestiture of multiple non-core business units, with an aggregate consideration value in excess of $600 million
- Acted on behalf of M&T Bank in connection with the sale of M&T Insurance Agency to A.J. Gallagher & Co.
- Represented a sponsor-owned European portfolio company in its first inbound U.S. acquisition of a manufacturing company
- Represented Cadence Bank in connection with the sale of Cadence Insurance to A.J. Gallagher & Co.
- Represent portfolio company in connection with multiple add-on transactions in the construction services industry, and act as outside general counsel
- Acted for a private equity firm in connection with a platform acquisition in construction services, as well as multiple add-on transactions
Recognitions
- Former associate editor, Wagner Review
- Martin L. Friedland Prize for best student article and Cassels Brock & Blackwell Prize for best article in the issue award, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review, 2006
- Associate editor, University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review, 2005
