Mark Easton
Partner
Mark Easton, the Regional Head of Corporate for Southern California, advises public and private corporations, private equity funds, boards of directors and financial advisors in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and other transactions, as well as corporate governance and securities law matters. Mark has been involved in more than 300 M&A transactions, ranging from multi-billion dollar mergers of public companies to sales of closely held family businesses. He has experience in a broad range of industries, including entertainment, sports and media, technology and telecommunications, REITs and real estate, health care and life sciences, aerospace and defense, construction and engineering, energy and infrastructure, and the Internet. Mark has been named one of the Top 100 Leading Lawyers in California by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals and one of the leading M&A lawyers in California by Chambers USA.
Mark began his career at O’Melveny where he spent 17-plus years before Warner Bros Entertainment Inc. tapped him to become Deputy General Counsel. As the principal transactions lawyer for Warner’s 150-attorney global legal department, Mark completed a wide variety of transactions, including acquisitions, investments, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and financings in the television, videogame, and digital media sectors. In 2012, Mark rejoined O’Melveny and his clients benefit from the in-house perspective and breadth of experience Mark gained working at one of the biggest names in the entertainment industry.
- Warner Bros. in numerous transactions, including acquisitions of television production companies such as Shed Media, Robert Gray and Blazhoffski (and numerous bids for other production companies, including Endemol), acquisitions of Alloy Entertainment, Flixster and Turbine, the formation of The CW network with CBS, licensing of Harry Potter theme parks, multiple bids to acquire MGM, the acquisition of film libraries and film rights, the negotiation of digital media joint ventures and acquisitions, and the disposition of domestic and international theater assets
- Western Digital in numerous acquisitions, including its US$5 billion acquisition of Hitachi’s hard disk drive business
- Qwest in over US$5 billion of M&A transactions, including wireline, wireless & web hosting assets
- Verizon in over US$5 billion of dispositions of wireline assets
- A group of US hedge funds in the $9 billion acquisition of Jupiter Telecom by Sumitomo and KDDI
- Catellus in its $5 billion merger with ProLogis
- Goodman Global in its US$3 billion sale to Hellman & Friedman
- The Los Angeles Dodgers in their sale to Fox
- Rick Caruso in his bid to acquire the Los Angeles Dodgers
- An investor group in the acquisition of the Los Angeles Sparks from the Los Angeles Lakers
- Airborne in its $1 billion sale to DHL
- The Macerich Company in its $3.5 billion acquisition of Wilmorite and its $1.5 billion acquisition of Wilcor
- Wendel Investissement in its $1.1 billion acquisition of Deutsch
- ADC&HAS in its $500 million acquisition of TBI, a US and European airport owner/operator
- Corporate Counsel: Guess?, Western Digital, The Macerich Company, Catellus & numerous other public companies
Admissions
Bar Admissions
- California
Education
- Harvard University, J.D., 1992: Board of Student Advisors; Harvard International Law Journal, Managing Editor
- Princeton University, M.P.A., 1989
- Swarthmore College, B.A., History and Economics, 1985
- Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, Sanwa Bank Fellowship, Yokohama, 1992-93
Honors & Awards
- Recognized by IFLR1000 as a “Notable Practitioner” in the practice areas of Capital Markets: Debt, Capital Markets: Equity, and Corporate M&A (California) (2019 - 2021)
- Ranked by Chambers USA - America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2009)
Corporate & Government Experience
- Warner Bros., Deputy General Counsel