ABOUT
EXPERIENCE:
John Aguirre is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he leads the firm’s employee benefits and compensation practice. His practice encompasses all aspects of employee benefits and executive compensation, including tax, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), and federal and state securities law. He also has significant experience in the employee benefits and executive compensation aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and spin-off transactions.
John represents clients in the high-tech, semiconductor, life sciences, retail, and financial sectors, helping them design and administer a wide array of plans, including tax-qualified retirement programs (for example, 401(k) plans), health and disability programs, equity-based compensation plans, and all kinds of executive compensation arrangements.
SELECT REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS:
- Advised on executive compensation and employee benefits matters related to some of the nation’s most significant mergers and acquisitions, including:
- An electronics manufacturer’s $16.7 billion acquisition by a global technology company
- An infrastructure software company’s $4.3 billion acquisition by a private equity firm
- A software development company’s $5.3 billion acquisition by an investment firm and an investment management organization
- A semiconductor manufacturer’s $4 billion merger with another semiconductor company
- A cloud computing company’s $390 million acquisition of an enterprise software company
- A financial services software company’s $2.7 billion acquisition of a software company
- An e-commerce company’s $280 million acquisition by a supermarket chain
- Represented executives, or executive teams, in going-private transactions (private equity leveraged buyout), including:
- A global technology company’s $3 billion acquisition of an audio products company and a subscription streaming music service
- A multinational computer technology company’s $25 billion going-private transaction
- Represented executives and company founders, including the CEO and founder of an action camera manufacturing company, in employee benefits and executive compensation matters, as well as structured CEO employment agreements for companies or on behalf of individuals
EDUCATION:
J.D., Stanford Law School, 1987
B.A., Business Administration, University of California, Berkeley, 1984
