Jeffrey A. Horwitz
Jeffrey A. Horwitz is a partner in Proskauer's Corporate Department where he co-heads our Private Equity Real Estate practice and runs our internationally recognized Hospitality, Gaming & Leisure Group. He also has served as co-head of Mergers & Acquisitions and as a member of our Executive Committee. Jeff is a general corporate and securities lawyer with broad-based experience in mergers and acquisitions, cross-border transactions, and long-term joint ventures. He is regularly engaged to advise boards, management teams and investors on strategic matters, from litigation to personnel to transactions. Jeff is also the head of the Firm’s cross-disciplinary, cross-jurisdictional Coronavirus Taskforce helping to shape the guidance and next steps for clients impacted by the pandemic.
Jeff counsels clients on the full range of their activities, from seed capital to public offerings, acquisitions and operational matters, often acting as outside general counsel. He represents major financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds, private equity and family offices in sophisticated financial and other transactions. He represented Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity in connection with its equity participation in the $33 billion acquisition of HCA in what was then the largest LBO ever. He has handled deals aggregating nearly $200 billion in value, including tender offers, "going-private" transactions, IPOs, restructuring and structured finance transactions, and mergers and acquisitions in industries as diverse as biotechnology and aerospace, retail and cable television, and education and scrap metal. He regularly handles transactions outside the U.S., including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, Australia, South Africa and India.
Leading our Private Equity Real Estate group, he works with a team of 75 lawyers from across the firm advising on complex transactions and disputes relating to real estate, and particularly hotels. Jeff has handled virtually every type of matter, and has worked with virtually every major player in these industries, including transactions for nearly 3,500 hotels comprising more than 275,000 rooms and involving more than $12 billion. His experience, both in and outside the U.S., extends to hotel and casino development and construction; portfolio and single-property acquisitions; sales and restructurings; financings; management; marketing; reservations systems; litigation counseling and strategic planning; and ancillary services. This breadth of work is key to executing complex and sophisticated transactions, such as the $2.9 billion acquisition of Fairmont Raffles by AccorHotels and its investments in Huazhu, Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, Brazil Hotel Group, sbe Entertainment and 21c Museum hotels, among others.
As a senior member of our Entertainment Group, Jeff represents The Broadway League (the national trade association for Broadway theatre), the Tony Awards®, and various other joint venture events and producers. In the media industry, Jeff has advised on the acquisition and sale of television, radio, newspaper and magazine properties, and the acquisition and sale of advertising, promotion and marketing agencies, and related joint ventures. He also advises rights holders, including our long-time clients The Leonard Bernstein Office and The Balanchine Trust. He leads our team representing TSG Entertainment in film-slate financing deals.
Jeff also frequently represents start-up and development-stage companies, as well as established "traditional" businesses, in online, Internet-related or technology businesses. He has handled organizational and structuring matters, venture capital and other equity placements, restructurings (from "down" rounds to recapitalizations to M&A solutions). He has both company-side and investor experience.
As a frequent speaker at real estate and hospitality events, Jeff regularly presents about hotel management agreements at The Hotel School at Cornell's SC Johnson College of Business, NYU's Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, and on M&A and investment matters at lodging investment conferences around the world, including the NYU Hospitality Industry Investment Conference in New York, Americas Lodging Investment Summit in Los Angeles, the International Hotel Investment Forum in Berlin and the Hotel Investment Conference Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong.
Jeff is a member of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) Hospitality Investment Roundtable, ULI (and its Hotel Development Council) and the Advisory Board of the Cornell Center for Real Estate and Finance and has served as a member of the Editorial Board of the Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly and a member of the Advisory Board of the Cornell Center for Hospitality Research. He is a director of The New York Hospitality Council, Inc., a not-for-profit forum for hospitality industry leaders, and is a member of the Real Estate Capital Policy Advisory Committee of The Real Estate Roundtable. He also has served as a director of the America-Israel Chamber of Commerce, and as a member of the French-American Chamber of Commerce in the U.S. and the American Society of Corporate Secretaries. He was the Chairman of the Board of Labyrinth Theater Company and a director of The Jewish Community Center in Manhattan for more than 15 years, a member of the Executive Committee of the Lawyers' Division of UJA-Federation for more than five years and an officer of the Henry Kaufmann Foundation for more than a dozen years. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of The American Playwriting Foundation and Building for the Arts and is a member of the Board of Directors of StreetSquash and The George Balanchine Foundation. He also served as a Vice Chair of the Associates' Campaign for The Legal Aid Society.
Jeff has been with the firm for his entire career and lives in Manhattan and Connecticut.
