Gregg A. Noel

In a capital markets environment characterized by rapid change and necessitating innovation, Mr. Noel is sought by U.S. and international issuers, investment banks and financial institutions to provide sophisticated guidance in the most complex transactions.

Annually, he is involved in numerous transactions totaling in the tens of billions of dollars. Clients from a broad range of industries, including health care, real estate, financial services and hospitality, call on him to handle their most important matters. He has extensive experience advising technology companies, including PayPal Holdings, Inc.; Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.; Ten-X, LLC; NVIDIA Corporation; Shopify Inc.; Yahoo! Inc.; Hulu, LLC; SurveyMonkey Inc.; SanDisk Corporation; and EMC Corporation.

He has been involved in numerous initial public offerings for U.S. and foreign issuers, including Arysta LifeScience Limited; Safety-Kleen Systems and Vencore Holding Corp. (each part of a dual-track process, which, in the case of Vencore, resulted in a merger via a Reverse Morris Trust); Affirm Holdings, Inc.; D.E Master Blenders 1753 B.V.; Houlihan Lokey Capital; Pinterest, Inc.; and Shopify Inc. He has an active practice representing special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), with his team advising on approximately 350 SPAC IPOs since 2006. Among many other groundbreaking SPAC deals, Mr. Noel handled the $690 million IPO for Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp., which was recognized as the top matter in the “Driving Value” category in the Financial Times’ 2017 Innovative Lawyers report, as well Social Capital’s subsequent IPOs.

He also regularly handles the financing aspects of strategic transactions such as mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and spin-offs. Some of Mr. Noel’s representations include EMC Corporation in its $67 billion acquisition by Dell, Inc.; Hillshire Brands Company in its $8.6 billion unsolicited acquisition by Tyson Foods; Plum Creek Timber Company in its $8.4 billion acquisition by Weyerhaeuser Co.; and SanDisk Corporation in its $19 billion acquisition by Western Digital Corporation. He also has represented clients such as J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc.; Viking Cruises Ltd.; and CF Industries in notes offerings and other transactions.

As co-head of the firm’s real estate investment trusts (REIT) practice, Mr. Noel regularly represents REITs in connection with capital market transactions, including initial public offerings and general corporate matters. He handled one of the largest-ever REIT IPOs — a $1.6 billion offering by Douglas Emmett Inc. — and has represented numerous other REITs including Westfield Corporation and DigitalBridge, Inc.

In 2023, Mr. Noel was recognized as a Stand-Out Lawyer by Thomson Reuters. In addition, on the strength of feedback from his clients, the BTI Consulting Group has recognized him several times as a Client Service All-Star.

Mr. Noel was named to Euromoney’s 2022 Best of the Best USA Expert Guide as one of the country’s top 30 capital markets practitioners. He also was recognized in 2021 as one of The American Lawyer’s inaugural Trailblazers of the West, which honors leading attorneys who have “moved the needle in the legal industry.” In 2020, the Daily Journal recognized him as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in California. Additionally, on the strength of client and peer feedback, he has been repeatedly recognized in The Best Lawyers in America, which named him its 2024 and 2020 San Jose Area Lawyer of the Year in the area of Securities/Capital Markets Law.

He is listed annually in Chambers Global and Chambers USA, where he is one of only eight attorneys ranked in Band 1 for Capital Markets: Debt & Equity, both in California and the Western United States. He also is ranked in Chambers’ Band 1 for SPAC transactions, with a client commentator noting in a recent edition that “there is nothing he doesn’t know.” He has been named repeatedly as one of Lawdragon’s 500 Leading Dealmakers in America and is annually recognized in The Legal 500 U.S., IFLR1000 and The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers — Capital Markets.

To view a list of Mr. Noel's representative transactions, please click here.