Neill Jakobe is vice chair-elect of Ropes & Gray and a member of the firm’s management committee. He previously served as co-head of the firm’s global private equity practice and as managing partner of the Chicago office. Focusing on private equity buyouts and strategic M&A, Neill has helped steer an international roster of private equity and strategic clients through complex deals ranging in size up to billions of dollars.
Neill is one of the most in-demand transactions lawyers in the country, particularly for complex and challenging private equity and M&A deals. Clients have described Neill as “super client-focused, responsive and commercial.” He has been recognized as “Highly Regarded” for 2023–2024/25 by IFLR1000 and a leading lawyer by both Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500. Crain’s Chicago Business named Neill to its 2024 Notable Leaders in Accounting, Consulting & Law. He was also named a Midwest Trailblazer by The American Lawyer in 2021.
Neill offers clients rare insight into the dealmaking process. In addition to his legal experience structuring, negotiating and closing complex deals, Neill has firsthand transactional experience from his work as an investment banker with the Financial Sponsors Group at Morgan Stanley. Earlier in his career, Neill also was a member of litigation teams handling high-profile securities fraud matters, including actions arising from Enron’s bankruptcy.
Neill’s term as vice chair will begin in January 2025.
Experience
- Represented EQT and EQT Asia in a number of global transactions, including the acquisition of Avetta from Welsh Carson, the acquisition of IMG Academy, the take-private of Virtusa Corporation, acquisition of Citius Tech, acquisition of NIIT, carve-out of Telus’ BPO business, acquisition and sale of St. George’s University, acquisition of Lumenis and subsequent carve-out sale of Lumenis’ surgical business to Boston Scientific, acquisition of Hinduja Global, and acquisition of GeBBS Healthcare Solutions.
- Represented GHO Capital in all of its North American platform acquisitions and many of their recent global transactions, including the acquisition of Alcami (with The Vistria Group), Envision Pharmaceuticals, Velocity Clinical, the acquisition and sale of Caprion, the acquisition and sale of DNA Diagnostic Centers, the acquisition of X-Chem, the acquisition of Biocare Medical, the acquisition of Genesis Research and many others.
- Represented Centerbridge and The Vistria Group in their acquisition of Help at Home, Adaptive Health, Civitas, and Centerbridge in its acquisition of Medical Solutions and a variety of other matters.
- Represented The Vistria Group on a number of Healthcare and other transactions, including its GP stakes sale to HPC and ADQ, Vistria’s acquisitions of Help at Home, Alcami, Homecare Holdings, Mission Healthcare, Homefree Pharmacy, Pantherx, Medalogix, AIS Healthcare, SCA Pharma and a variety of other transactions
- Represented GI Partners on most of its recent investments, including acquisitions of Aras, Daxko, Clinical Ink, Rectangle Health, take private of GTY Corp., take private of Atlas Technical Consultants and a number of other matters.
- Represented Bain and Blackstone in their sale of the digital business of The Weather Company to IBM, and Bain’s majority equity funding of Quva Pharma Inc. and acquisition of 503B assets from Healix Inc.
- Represented Cressey and Company in a number of recent transactions, most recently including the sale of PurFoods, sale of Statlab, sale of VetCor and a number of acquisitions (D4C, Statlab, Purfoods, VetCor, PPV and others), also in its sale of Strategic Healthcare Programs to Roper Industries.
- Represented BV Investment Partners in a number of matters, including the continuation fund for Right Networks, investment in and sale of Solarity, investment in geoLogic systems, investment in C-4 Analytics and investment in and sale of Civic Plus to Insight Partners, investment in Intelliteach, investment in and sale of Franco Signor, acquisition of Level Data and a variety of other transactions.
- Represented Mitsubishi Bank and its affiliates in a variety of transactions, including the acquisition of Meridian Fund Services Group, acquisition of UBS Global Asset Management's administrative funds business, Guggenheim's 40 Act fund administration business, and Neuberger Berman's private equity fund administration business.
- Represented McNally Capital in its acquisition of ITS Logistics, acquisition of Dedicated Computing, investment in Genesys Aerosystems and investment in Europa Sports Products, among other matters.
- Represented The Hershey Company in its acquisition of Pirate Brands Group.
- Represented Jacobs Holding AG in its acquisition of North American Dental Group.
- Represented Coca Cola Bottling Company in its acquisition of bottling assets and territory rights from Coca Cola Company in Northern Florida, Central Florida and Southern Florida.
- Represented Cardinal System Holdings in its acquisition of Ag-Pro Texas.
- Representing Biomet, Inc. in its sale to Zimmer Holdings, Inc. for $12.35 billion.
- Represented Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and CareSpot in their roll-up of urgent care centers, investment in Renal Advantage, sale of Renal Advantage to Liberty Dialysis, investment in CareSpot and sale of CareSpot.
- Represented TPG in its take private of Immucor, Inc., a leading provider of instrument-reagent systems to the blood transfusion industry, and sale of Fenwal to Fresenius Kabi.