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People

Joseph Halloum Baker Botts Palo Alto
Joseph Halloum Baker Botts Palo Alto
Joseph K. Halloum
Partner
[email protected]
Details
Overview
Overview Admissions & Affiliations Experience News Awards and Community
Practices
Artificial Intelligence AI
Board Governance and Fiduciary Duty
Corporate
Delaware Board Governance and Fiduciary Duty
Joint Ventures
Mergers and Acquisitions
Private Equity and Private Capital
Industries
Data Centers
Life Sciences
Manufacturing
Media and Entertainment
Technology

Overview

Joseph Halloum is a nationally recognized corporate, M&A and private equity advisor and Chair of the West Coast M&A practice at Baker Botts.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, he represents public and private companies and leading private equity sponsors on their most complex and strategically important transactions. His practice spans domestic and cross border M&A, take privates, acqui-hires, carve outs, leveraged buyouts, strategic investments, joint ventures, activism defense, capital structures, governance matters, and an array of high stakes corporate issues.

Widely regarded as one of the foremost dealmakers across both the technology and life sciences sectors, Joseph has advised on many of the industry's most notable and closely followed transactions. His experience includes hundreds of M&A matters across software, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, machine learning, enterprise services, CX, internet-of-things, datacenters, telecom, media, life sciences, medtech, gaming, manufacturing, and industrials. Clients regularly rely on him for his deep market knowledge, creative problem solving, ability to navigate sensitive boardroom dynamics, and relentless focus on helping to obtain successful outcomes in fast moving, high pressure situations.

Joseph also represents numerous companies and boards in connection with large shareholder matters, activist defense, and unsolicited takeover situations, the majority of which remain confidential. Among publicly disclosed situations, he advised TriNet Group with matters involving its largest shareholder Atairos Group, Del Frisco's in its settlement with Engaged Capital, Yahoo! in its settlement with Third Point, Autodesk in its settlements with Sachem Head Capital and Eminence Capital, and Tessera Technologies in its settlement with Starboard Value.

A committed leader in the Bay Area legal and academic communities, Joseph teaches Mergers & Acquisitions at both Berkeley Law and Stanford Law School. In partnership with Stanford Law School, Joseph founded and co-chairs The GC Roundtable, which has brought together more than 500 general counsel and chief legal officers across the technology and private equity ecosystems. He also created and continues to run the Emma and Joseph H. Halloum Business and Negotiation Competitions -- two first of their kind programs jointly run between Berkeley Law and the Haas School of Business that give students practical, hands on M&A negotiation experience and facilitates connections with participating legal practitioners and future career opportunities.

Admissions & Affiliations

  • State Bar of California
  • District of Columbia Bar
  • New York State Bar
  • Lecturer, Mergers and Acquisitions, Stanford Law School
  • Lecturer, Mergers and Acquisitions, Berkeley Law
  • Founder and Co-Chair of The GC Roundtable
  • Founder, Emma and Joseph H. Halloum Business Competition and Negotiation Competition, Berkeley Haas + Law
  • Law360 Private Equity Editorial Board, 2025

Education

  • J.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Law 2010
  • B.S., Business Administration, University of California at Berkeley 2005

Experience

Joseph has advised on hundreds of M&A matters across various geographies, industries, capital structures and transaction types, including:

Strategic

  • ServiceNow on its acquisitions of ThirdAI, QuickNexus, Cuein and Era Software, Inc., and carve-out businesses from Advance Solutions and Bravium Consulting.
  • Zendesk on its acquisition of Unleash Labs.
  • Keysight Technologies on its $1.4 billion acquisition of Spirent Communications.
  • Zymergen on its $300 million sale to Ginkgo Bioworks - the first-ever sale of a publicly-listed public benefit corporation.
  • Ericsson on various matters, including its $6.2 billion acquisition of Vonage and sale of its IoT Accelerator and Connected Vehicle Cloud businesses to Aeris Communications.
  • Saint-Gobain on its $2.3 billion acquisition of GCP Applied Technologies.
  • Delphi Technologies on its $3.3 billion sale to BorgWarner.
  • Aristocrat Leisure on its $1.2 billion acquisition of Nasdaq-listed Neogames.
  • Entain in connection with DraftKings’ $22.4 billion and MGM’s $11 billion takeover offers.
  • Broadcom on numerous matters, including its $37 billion sale to Avago Technologies; $164 million carve-out acquisition of LTE-related assets from Renesas Electronics; and $3.7 billion acquisition of NetLogic Microsystem.
  • LSI Corp. on its $6.6 billion sale to Avago Technologies.
  • Lattice Semiconductor on its $600 million acquisition of Silicon Image.
  • Dell on its $2.4 billion acquisition of Quest Software.
  • The Walt Disney Company on its $4 billion acquisition of Lucasfilm.
  • The Yokohama Rubber Company on its $905 million acquisition of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s off-the-road tire business.
  • Yahoo! on several matters, including in connection with Alibaba’s $25 billion IPO and sale of a $16 billion ownership stake in Alibaba in a series of transactions; and agreements with Alibaba and Softbank on the $4 billion restructuring of Alibaba’s Alipay business.
  • EnergySolutions on its $1.1 billion sale to Energy Capital Partners.

Private Equity

  • Vista Equity Partners on numerous acquisitions, including its $1.55 billion acquisition and split up of The Advisory Board Company’s education business, $1.6 billion take-private of Infoblox, $564 million acquisition of Xactly, $2 billion acquisition of Apptio and $2 billion take-private of MINDBODY.
  • Mulliez portfolio company Foundever on numerous confidential and pending investments and acquisitions, including its $2.2 billion take-private of Sykes Enterprises, sale of portfolio company ClearLink Technologies to Clarke Capital Partners, minority equity and debt investments in XSELL Technologies., and carve-out sale of its insurance business.
  • Permira Funds on various matters, including its $1.1 billion sale of Renaissance Learnings to Hellman & Friedman, and its $5 billion sale of NDS Group to Cisco Systems.
  • Zeus Company on its $3.4 billion sale to EQT Partners.
  • HGGC on various matters, including its acquisition of Zoo Printing, $825 million acquisition of Monotype Imaging, $555 million take-private of RPX and $450 million acquisition of Nutraceutical.
  • CVC Capital on various matters, including its $470 million minority investment in Aleph Holding and subsequent IPO plans.
  • Ares Management and Smart & Final Stores on its $1.12 billion sale to Apollo Global Management.
  • True Wind Capital on its acquisition of ARI Network Services.
  • Vector Capital and Sizmek, on their acquisition of Rocket Fuel.
  • WL Ross & Co. on its $500 million SPAC and subsequent $1.6 billion acquisition of Nexeo Solutions from TPG.
  • Parthenon Capital Partners on various matters, including its $1.05 billion sale of Cayan to TSYS, and sale of Eliza Corp. to HMS.
  • Olympus Partners on various matters, including its sale of NPC International (the largest Pizza Hut and Wendy’s franchisee) to Durational Capital, and its simultaneous acquisitions of supply chain technology providers MEBC Global and Plantensive.
  • Del Frisco’s Restaurant Group on its $650 million sale to L Catterton.
  • Fortress on its $440 million co-investment and acquisition of Perry Ellis.
  • Peak Rock Capital on numerous matters, including its acquisition of Sweet Harvest Foods and Pretzels, Inc.
  • Macquarie Capital, as co-sponsor, in the Hydra Industries SPAC IPO.
  • Fox Paine & Co. on various matters, including its sale of Penhaligon's and L'Artisan Parfumeur to PUIG and acquisition of Global Indemnity.
  • Steinway Musical on its $512 million sale to Paulson & Co.

Awards and Community

Recognized for M&A/Corporate and Commercial: Middle Market ($500m-999m) by The Legal 500 U.S., 2025

Named to the “M&A Power List” by The Legal 500 U.S., 2024

Ranked as a “Rising Star” for M&A by Super Lawyers (Thomson Reuters), 2019-2023

Named one of the “Lawyers on the Fast Track” by California Legal Awards, 2022

Recognized as a California “Trailblazer” by The Recorder, 2019

Recognized with a California Lawyer “Attorney of the Year” award for his work on the Broadcom-Avago merger by The Daily Journal, 2016