General Electric is a great client for M&A lawyers who’ve kept busy in the past couple of years helping the corporate giant sell off chunks of its diverse empire. Now, GE seems to be at the start of a buying spree, and if two recent deals are any indication, Sidley Austin‘s Brian Fahrney is sure to benefit.
In the spring, the 43-year-old Chicago-based corporate partner was tapped by GE Capital, the financing arm of the company, to negotiate a $1.6 billion acquisition of Citigroup’s retail finance portfolio. Over the summer, Fahrney was separately (and confidentially) approached to take on another job: leading negotiations for GE Energy on a deal The New York Times described as the unit’s largest industrial acquisition since before the financial crisis, the $3 billion purchase of privately held energy services company Dresser Inc. The Dresser acquisition was signed and announced on Wednesday morning around 8 a.m. EST; a little later came the announcement of the Citigroup deal.
