SoftBank’s Top Lawyer Steps Down Amid Investment-Side Departures

SoftBank Group Corp. Chief Legal Officer Robert Townsend will retire at the end of the month, according to an internal memo viewed by Bloomberg Law.

Townsend recently told SoftBank employees that he will move into a senior advisory role at the Tokyo-based technology conglomerate. The company’s board has tapped deputy general counsel and group compliance officer Timothy Mackey to replace him as legal chief, Townsend said.

“I look forward to continuing to work with you all,” Townsend wrote in the memo.

Townsend is a former co-chair of the global mergers and acquisitions practice at Morrison & Foerster who moved into SoftBank’s top legal role in 2018.

His departure follows the exit of four top executives from SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund. The investment vehicle backed by the company’s billionaire founder Masayoshi Son has taken a financial hit this year after writing down the value of its investments in ridesharing giant Uber Technologies Inc. and the We Co., parent company of co-working leader WeWork.

The Vision Fund’s struggles led SoftBank to cut 15% of its employees in June, although the company’s stock price has rebounded in recent months from coronavirus pandemic-induced losses.

A SoftBank spokesman confirmed that former DLA Piper partner Brian Wheeler remains managing partner and general counsel for SoftBank Investment Advisers, a San Carlos, Calif.-based entity that oversees its Vision Fund.

Changing Times

Bloomberg News has reported that SoftBank is considering going private after agreeing in September to the $40 billion sale of its chip division, Arm Ltd., to Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia Corp.

Mackey, SoftBank’s new legal leader, was promoted that same month to the role of group compliance officer following the departure of former compliance chief Chad Fentress. Brendan Kelleher, a former director of ethics and compliance at SoftBank, was also promoted in September to succeed Fentress.

“It became clear to me that now is the right time” to transition to Mackey, Townsend said in his exit memo. Mackey is a former lawyer at Paul Hastings and Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in Tokyo who joined SoftBank in 2018.

“I have the utmost confidence in Tim’s ability to lead this team moving forward and build on the great work we have already done,” Townsend wrote.

MoFo, where Townsend spent more than three decades before joining SoftBank, is currently advising the company on its proposed divestiture of Arm, which is being advised by Hogan Lovells.

Townsend noted in his parting message that “as outside counsel at MoFo, SoftBank was a long-standing and special client, going way beyond just a client-advisor relationship.” He praised Son and SoftBank Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure for bringing him to the company, where he said he had a “whirlwind of a ride, and a truly amazing experience.”

MoFo is currently advising SoftBank on its sale of a controlling stake in Brightstar Corp., a Miami-based cell phone distributor founded by Claure, to a private equity firm advised by Kirkland & Ellis. MoFo also took the lead representing SoftBank and Sprint Corp. on the latter’s $26.5 billion takeover this year by T-Mobile US Inc. SoftBank was a controlling shareholder in Sprint prior to the closing of that deal.

Townsend called the completion of that merger one of “SoftBank’s most important transactions” and a “huge uphill battle” that cleared the way for “the monetization of a portion of our T-Mobile holdings in the largest secondary sale of shares in history.”

New Recruits

Townsend also touted the “world class legal and compliance team” that SoftBank has built over the years, one that has “a robust culture of inclusion, collaboration, and a commitment to giving back and supporting our communities.”

Patricia Menéndez-Cambó, a former chair of the global corporate practice at Greenberg Traurig in Miami, joined SoftBank last year as a deputy general counsel.

At least two former MoFo associates, Anisah Giansiracusa and Ryan Bates, have joined SoftBank this year as associate corporate counsel and head of U.S. legal for SB Energy Corp., respectively. SoftBank’s international arm also hired Christine Kennedy as deputy general counsel for commercial and corporate affairs in June and senior counsel Akshay Kundaiker joined SoftBank’s Tokyo headquarters in February.

SoftBank hired Aaron Katzel, a former head of legal operations at American International Group Inc., this year as chief operating officer of legal and compliance, a newly created role at the company. Katzel’s position sees him oversee data analytics and legal technology to optimize the function of SoftBank’s corporate law department and that of its portfolio companies.

Some of those entities include autonomous vehicle startup Cruise LLC, which hired former U.S. diplomat Jeffrey Bleich as legal chief in April, and Urban Compass Inc., a SoftBank-backed real estate brokerage that in May brought on a new top lawyer in Bradley Serwin from Glassdoor Inc. Compass hired former Kirkland litigation partner Terence Leong as senior counsel for litigation in September.