Partner
Paris
Tel: 33.1.56.59.39.39
Fax: 33.1.56.59.39.38
Email: wrjohnsonjr@jonesday.com

French Biography

Profile | Experience | Speaking Engagements

Related Services

• Mergers & Acquisitions
  • M&A
  • Joint Ventures & Strategic Alliances
• Oil & Gas
  • Oil & Gas M&A

Wesley Johnson is Partner-in-Charge in Paris. His practice focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance generally. Major recent client representations have included:

• Rhône-Poulenc Chimie/Rhodia with a series of dispositions and restructurings involving French and overseas assets (1994-ongoing)

• La Poste Française/Co&Lo/Geopost with its international M&A program, including acquisition of the DPD parcel network in Germany, acquisition of Mayne Nickless in U.K., joint venture with FedEx, and postal alliances in Europe (1997-ongoing)

• Ernst & Young with the contribution of its worldwide consulting business to Cap Gemini and ensuing secondary offering of shares in a public offering in France and Rule 144A private placement in the United States (1999)

• Diebold with its acquisition of the worldwide automatic teller machine (ATM) assets and activities of Bull S.A. and Getronics (1999-2000)

• France Telecom with its $7.7 billion acquisition of a controlling interest in Auna, the parent company of Amena, Spain's third largest mobile operator (2005); the acquisition of a controlling interest (2001) and the buyout of minority shareholders (2005) of Equant; and the restructuring of Ericsson and Nokia vendor loans (2003) as well as the acquisition of a 100 percent stake in the Spanish company Ya.com (2007)

• Thales Group in the disposition of Magellan and the disposition of its 2.2 percent shareholding in Embrear (2006) and

• sanofi-aventis with various pending acquisition/disposition transactions (1999-ongoing).

Other French clients he has regularly represented include Total, Calyon, and Banque CPR. Representative U.S. clients include Abbott Laboratories, Diebold, and Parker Hannifin with respect to European M&A transactions.

Wesley is cited yearly as one of the best corporate/M&A lawyers in France in the guides Chambers Global, PLC Which lawyer?, and The Legal 500 EMEA.

California and Paris Bars

University of Michigan (B.A. magna cum laude 1975); Cambridge University (B.A. with first class honours 1977; M.A. 1982); Harvard University (M.A. 1978; J.D. cum laude 1982)

English, French