What were some of your most satisfying successes of the past year, and why? Representing Qualcomm in its $4.5 billion deal jump for Swedish automotive systems company Veoneer was incredibly satisfying to see through. At first, successful execution looked daunting; the client was focused on one part of the Veoneer business, its advanced autonomous driving solutions platform, and had no interest in holding any of Veoneer’s Tier-1 businesses for even a second. Consequently, acquiring Veoneer and then divesting its Tier-1 business wasn’t an option.

To address this, we built a deal structure that allowed Qualcomm to identify and partner with a private equity firm that would acquire all of Veoneer, but retained flexibility for Qualcomm to acquire only the specific assets it wanted. To help manage the complexity for the Veoneer board, SSW granted Qualcomm a complete power of attorney, which allowed Qualcomm to negotiate with Veoneer on SSW’s behalf.