John R. Sobolewski is a partner in Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz’s Restructuring and Finance Department.  His multidisciplinary practice includes a broad range of finance, restructuring and related matters, including leveraged M&A, public and private capital markets transactions, complex syndicated bank financings, special situations and in-court and out-of-court workouts, and debt default activism and net-short debt activism situations.

John has represented borrower clients in numerous major corporate financing transactions, including T-Mobile in connection with its acquisition of Sprint and its related $38.0 billion of financing commitments, $39.0 billion of consent solicitations, and related bridge loan, credit agreement and senior notes issuances; Gap in connection with its $1.8675 billion ABL credit agreement and $2.25 billion senior secured notes issuances; Searchlight in connection with its investment in Consolidated Communications and its related $2.0 billion of term loan and bond issuances; XPO Logistics in its €3.24 billion acquisition of Norbert Dentressangle S.A. and $3 billion acquisition of Con-Way, and its subsequent refinancings and repricings and new debt incurrences; Lions Gate in its $4.5 billion of bank and bond transactions in connection with its acquisition of Starz, and its subsequent repricing transactions and bond exchanges and issuances; and Apollo in its $1.0 billion buyout of Presidio, and Presidio’s subsequent refinancing transaction and leveraged stock buyback.

John has extensive experience in complex liability management matters, including representing Travelport in its $3.6 billion of exchange transactions and financing transactions; Mallinckrodt in its $495 million out-of-court exchange offer and related financing matters; and Intelsat in connection with over $6.0 billion of issuances of high-yield, holdco and convertible notes, as well as related bond tenders and purchases.

John has represented major investors in numerous restructuring situations, including Centerbridge Partners in connection with its investment in Speedcast, Costa Verde in connection with its DIP financing commitment to LATAM, and Goldman Sachs, GSO Capital Partners and Bank of Nova Scotia in various other workout and restructuring situations.  John has also represented key stakeholders in multiple major public and private debt default activism situations.

John also frequently represents sellers in financing matters relating to major M&A transactions, including Celgene in its sale to Bristol-Myers Squibb; eBay in its sale of StubHub; Monsanto in its sale to Bayer; Whole Foods in its sale to Amazon.com; Envision in its sale to KKR; and Convergys in its sale to Synnex.

John was recognized by Lawdragon as one of the 500 Leading U.S. Bankruptcy & Restructuring Lawyers.  John has also been recognized as a “Rising Star” by Super Lawyers, and a “Rising Star” by Expert Guides.

John received a B.A. summa cum laude from Boston College in 2005.  He completed a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2008.