Steven P. Buffone is a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He serves as Co-Chair of the firm's Corporate Transactions Practice Group, and Co-Chair of the firm's Energy and Infrastructure Practice Group. He is also a member of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Products Practice Group. Mr. Buffone is a corporate transactional lawyer who has represented clients in mergers and acquisitions, public and private issuances of debt and equity securities, venture capital financings, corporate restructurings and bankruptcies and general corporate counseling.
Over the course of his career, Mr. Buffone has represented a wide variety of clients, including corporations, private equity firms, investment banks and commercial banks. Mr. Buffone has worked in a large number of industries, including energy, defense, steel, aluminum, biotechnology, medical devices, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, luxury retail goods, financial services, real estate, sporting goods, consumer products, automobile supplies, aggregates, semiconductors, satellites, newspapers, truck, bus and yacht manufacturers, computer hardware and software and insurance.
Representative current clients include defense company Alliant Techsystems, known as ATK, the Almatis Group (multinational alumina manufacturer), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd., CMI Marketing (owner of large social media internet sites), Credit Suisse, Diskeeper Corporation (the world's largest computer defragmentation software company), Goldman Sachs, private equity firm LS Power, Macquarie Capital, Merck KGa, Mesoblast Limited (Australian biotechnology company developing novel treatments for orthopedic conditions using adult stem cells), Metco Steel, private equity firm NewCastle Partners, investment banking boutique Ondra Partners, OAO TMK (Russian steel manufacturer with significant operations in North America), and Sergei Plastinin (owner of the largest group of juice and dairy companies in Russia with significant interests in the U.S.).
Mr. Buffone is a cum laude graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and the Cornell and Stanford Law Schools. He began his career at Gibson Dunn in 1984 and practiced in the Los Angeles and London offices before relocating to the New York office in 1990.
Mr. Buffone is a member of the New York and California bars and is active in firm management, having served for many years as Co-Partner In Charge of the New York office. He is also a former member of the firm's Executive Committee.
Mr. Buffone has spoken at a number of national seminars involving mergers and acquisitions, securities and other corporate and transactional matters. Most recently, he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on "Energy Policy in the Obama Administration," to the Houston Bar Association on "The Convergence of Private Equity Firms and Hedge Funds," at the American Conference Institute's program on "M&A: Trends and Developments in the Law" and at the New York City Bar Association's program on "Beyond M&A, Structuring Deals in a Difficult Economy." He has authored articles on various M&A and joint venture topics for a variety of publications, has been quoted for his M&A knowledge in The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Forbes, The New York Times, The Daily Deal and other publications and has appeared numerous times on CNN, CNBC, Lou Dobbs Moneyline and CNNfn to discuss various corporate law issues. In 2009 and 2010, he fulfilled a lifetime dream by twice performing (to the extent speaking is a performance) at the world famous Apollo Theater in Harlem.
In 2007, Mr. Buffone was recognized by Euromoney for his involvement in one of its Project Finance Deals of the Year (North American Merchant: NE Energy). In 2008, he was recognized by Project Finance magazine for his involvement in its "North American Single Asset Deal of the Year." Most recently, Mr. Buffone was named a leading M&A attorney in the 2008 through 2010 editions of the IFLR1000, a guide to the world's leading financial law firms and lawyers.
Mr. Buffone serves on the Board of Governors of Georgetown University, the Board of Visitors of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Echoing Green, the premier not-for-profit providing venture capital funding for young social entrepreneurs (including the founders of Teach for America and City Year). He is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Do Something.Org, a national not-for-profit that inspires and trains teenagers to be leaders in community service. In 2010, well over 1 million teenagers took action in their communities using the resources of Do Something. Mr. Buffone was recently honored for his pro bono and community service activities by receiving the Cornerstone Award from the Lawyers Alliance of New York and the Outstanding Citizen Award from Do Something.