Three months ago, Dewey & LeBoeuf’s M&A chair, Morton Pierce, was called in to Disney’s Burbank offices in California as talks between the company’s executives and Marvel Entertainment heated up. And for good reason, as there is probably little about long-time client Walt Disney that Pierce doesn’t know.
Over the past 15 years, he has helped Disney navigate through a period of explosive growth, negotiating its $19bn (£11.6bn) purchase of Capital Cities/ABC in 1996, its acquisition of InfoSeek Corp in 1999, its $5.3bn (£3.2bn) purchase of Fox Family Worldwide in 2001, and its acquisition of the Muppets in 2004 – not to mention spinoffs of newspapers and other divisions.
