Jim Christian is a Partner at Centerview and has spent his career advising clients on a full range of complex strategic and M&A matters, including buy-side and sell-side mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, divestitures, special committee assignments, shareholder activism defense, restructurings and minority close-outs, across a variety of industry sectors with a focus on Media and Entertainment.
Selected assignments include advising the Special Committee of Paramount in its announced $23 billion merger with Skydance, the Special Committee of Endeavor on its $25 billion announced take-private by Silver Lake, the Special Committee of Charter Communications on its $16 billion acquisition of Liberty Broadband, Disney on its activist defense against Nelson Peltz of Trian Partners and various strategic matters, Topgolf Callaway on the announced spin-off of Topgolf to create two pure-play businesses in equipment and live entertainment, Chernin Entertainment on its acquisition of Red Arrow from ProSieben and ~$500 million debt and equity financing to form The North Road Company, Hasbro on its $500m sale of eOne’s film and television business to Lionsgate, AT&T on its activist defense against Elliott Management and other strategic matters, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company on the $350 million sale of its trade publishing business HMH Books and Media to News Corp., TransUnion on the $1.7 billion carve-out of TransUnion Healthcare business in a sale to nThrive and Clearlake Capital Group, Hasbro on its £3.3 billion acquisition of Entertainment One Ltd., Tiffany & Co. on its $17 billion sale to LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, CBS’s Board Special Committee on its $48 billion combination with Viacom; the Special Committee of Pandora Media on its $3.5 billion sale to Liberty / SiriusXM, the Special Committee of HSNi on its $2.6 billion sale to Liberty Interactive Corp, the Board of Directors of Time Warner Cable on its $79 billion sale to Comcast (withdrawn) and subsequent sale to Charter Communications, Ralph Lauren on various strategic matters, GE on the announced separation of its Healthcare business and the merger of its Oil & Gas business with Baker Hughes, Newell Rubbermaid on its $13 billion acquisition of Jarden Corporation, New Mountain Capital on the sale of Deltek to Thoma Bravo, AvalonBay on its joint-acquisition with Equity Residential of Archstone from Lehman Brothers Holdings, the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of TNS Inc. on its sale to Siris Capital, EarthLink on its acquisitions of ITC^DeltaCom and One Communications and advising the largest unsecured creditors group in the General Growth Properties Chapter 11 process.
Prior to joining Centerview in 2013, Mr. Christian was a Vice President at Greenhill & Company and member of the firm’s TMT Mergers & Acquisitions advisory practice. He has also executed numerous equity and equity-linked financing transactions for a diverse group of companies.
Mr. Christian holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. from Harvard College.