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Steve Frankel advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, proxy contests and other transactions, as well as media strategy, investor relations and crisis communications. During the past two decades, Mr. Frankel has been involved in dozens of high-profile takeover battles, friendly mergers and other change of control situations involving many of the world’s most respected corporations. His particular industry expertise includes financial services, energy, healthcare, media and telecommunications.
Some of Mr. Frankel’s most recent transaction clients have included Clear Channel in its pending sale to Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners; Dollar General in its sale to KKR; Compass Bancshares in its sale to BBVA; the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade in their merger; Sky Financial in its sale to Huntington Bancshares; Energy Partners in its successful defense against Woodside; Pilgrim’s Pride in its successful unsolicited bid for Gold Kist; Morgans Hotel Group in its acquisition of the Hard Rock Hotel Las Vegas; Boston Scientific in its successful unsolicited bid for Guidant; Abgenix in its sale to Amgen; Capital One in its acquisition of Hibernia; and North Fork in its acquisition of GreenPoint.
Mr. Frankel’s M&A experience also includes advising Comcast in its successful unsolicited bid for AT&T Broadband; Starwood in its white knight acquisition of ITT; Warner-Lambert in its sale to Pfizer; AMR in its acquisition of TWA; Westvaco in its merger of equals with Mead; AES in its successful unsolicited bid for Electricidad de Caracas; and Avis and Orbitz in their respective acquisitions by Cendant.
Mr. Frankel has considerable experience defending companies against activist hedge funds and dissident shareholders in proxy contests and withhold campaigns, including Carl Icahn, Steel Partners, Third Point, Barington, Knightspoint, PL Capital, and CalPERS, among others.
Prior to joining Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, Mr. Frankel led the M&A practices at The Abernathy MacGregor Group and Burson-Marsteller.
Throughout his career, Mr. Frankel has worked with numerous corporations on public and investor relations, including Allianz, American Electric Power, BP, BellSouth, Comerica, Deloitte & Touche, International Paper, Morgan Stanley, Occidental Petroleum, Safeway, Serono, Shell, SunTrust, Tyson Foods, Unilever and United Technologies, among others. In addition, he provided crisis management counsel to investment bank Sandler O’Neill & Partners after the firm lost 66 employees in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 and continues to advise the firm on its media relations and corporate reputation.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Frankel served as a press aide and speechwriter to Georgia Gov. Joe Frank Harris and University of Georgia President Charles B. Knapp. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree in political science from Georgia State University. | 