JOHN A. FORE

Partner
Corporate

EXPERIENCE:

John Fore has been a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati since 1990, where he co-leads the firm's finance and structured finance practice. John has extensive experience in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions transactions, and has worked on a large number of public and private mergers and acquisitions transactions, representing both acquirer and target companies, as well as private equity firms. In addition, his practice includes a broad range of public and private equity and debt financing transactions, representing both domestic and foreign issuers and underwriters and placement agents in a variety of industries, including technology, retail, telecommunications, biotechnology, clean tech, health care, telecommunications, and manufacturing. He has also worked on a large number of joint ventures, spin-outs, PIPEs and venture capital financings.

John currently serves as a member of the firm's Policy Committee and is a former member of the firm's board of directors.

SELECT TRANSACTIONS:
  • Adobe Systems in its $1.0 billion offering of senior notes
  • Amkor in offerings of over $3.0 billion of senior and convertible senior notes
  • Applied Materials in its $1.75 billion offering of senior notes
  • Cypress Semiconductor in its acquisition of SunPower
  • Eastman Kodak in its placement of $500 million of senior secured notes and $300 million senior secured notes to K.K.R.
  • Genentech in its offering of $2 billion of senior notes
  • Francisco Partners in its $420 million acquisition of Metrologic Instruments and its subsequent $720 million sale to Honeywell
  • Freescale Semiconductor in its $19 billion sale to a private equity consortium led by The Blackstone Group and the related the tender offers/consent solicitations with respect to $850 million in senior
  • The GoDaddy Group in its $2.25 billion sale to K.K.R, Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures and the related issuance of $300 million of senior notes
  • Hewlett-Packard in its offerings of over $15 billion of senior notes
  • Linear Technology in its offering of $1.7 billion of convertible senior notes
  • Micron Technology in its $2.5 billion acquisition of Elpida Memory, Inc. out of bankruptcy
  • Micron Technology in its $1.3 billion acquisition of Numonyx from Intel Corporation, ST Microelectronics B.V. and Francisco Partners
  • Micron Technology in its $400 million acquisition of shares of Inotera Memories, a Taiwanese joint venture, from Qimonda AG
  • Micron Technology in its purchase of U.S. wafer fab facilities from Toshiba
  • Micron Technology in its $1.8 billion acquisition of the semiconductor memory manufacturing business of Texas Instruments
  • Micron Technology in its offerings of over $6 billion of convertible senior notes and over $3.7 billion of senior notes
  • NetApp in its offerings of over $1.5 billion of senior notes and $1.1 billion of convertible senior notes
  • Netflix in its offerings of over $2.6 billion of senior notes and over $200 million zero coupon senior convertible notes
  • Nuance Communications in its offerings of $700 million senior notes and $600 million of senior convertible debentures
  • salesforce.com in its offering of $1.15 billion of convertible senior notes
  • Serena Software its $1.2 billion sale to a private equity consortium led by Silver Lake Partners
  • Sun Microsystems it is $700 million placement of convertible notes to K.K.R.
  • SVB Financial Group in offerings of over $1.6 billion of senior and subordinated notes and $250 million of convertible senior notes
  • Tesla Motors in its offerings of over $2.9 billion of senior convertible notes
  • Tibco Software in its offering of $525 million of convertible senior notes
EDUCATION:
  • J.D., New York University School of Law, 1983
  • B.A., Yale University, 1979
    Cum Laude
ASSOCIATIONS AND MEMBERSHIPS:
  • Member, Corporations Committee, Business Law Section of the State Bar of California
HONORS:
  • Named in the 2006-2018 editions of Best Lawyers in America
  • Named in the 2005-2017 editions of Northern California Super Lawyers
  • Recognized in the 2004-2018 editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, in which he is praised for his "great perspective" and "expert" representation of tech and telecommunication companies
ADMISSIONS:
  • State Bar of California
  • State Bar of New York