Lee Parnes
Lawyers

Advises corporate and private equity clients in transactions including public and private mergers and acquisitions, JVs, spinoffs, investments and carve-outs.
Lee advises corporate and private equity clients in a broad range of transactional matters, including public and private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, spinoffs, investments and carve-outs.
He has advised clients in various industries, including the industrial, aerospace and defense, healthcare, gaming, fintech, digital assets, real estate and consumer products sectors.
Experience
Lee’s representations prior to joining Davis Polk include:
- Apple Tree Partners, as the majority shareholder in Syntimmune, in connection with Syntimmune’s acquisition by Alexion Pharmaceuticals for up to $1.2 billion
- B. Riley Financial in connection with the acquisition of Franchise Group
- Benefitfocus in its $570 million acquisition by Voya Financial
- Boeing in its $8.3 billion acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems
- Candy Digital in its acquisition by Futureverse, its acquisition of Palm NFT Studio and its Series A-1 financing round led by Galaxy and ConsenSys Mesh
- Cementos Argos in connection with the $3.2 billion combination of its U.S. operations, Argos North America Corp., with Summit Materials
- ConsenSys Software in numerous financings from 2020 to 2023, which took the company’s valuation from $50 million to over $7 billion
- DraftKings in its acquisition of Simplebet and $750 million acquisition of Jackpocket
- GGP in its $28 billion sale to Brookfield Property Partners
- Ki Corporation in its joint proposal with Public Storage to acquire Abacus Storage King at an A$3 billion enterprise value
- Knoll in its $1.8 billion acquisition by Herman Miller and PIPE transaction
- Leonardo DRS, the U.S. defense subsidiary of Leonardo S.p.A., in its de-SPAC combination with RADA Electronic Industries
- Mountain & Co. I Acquisition Corp., a SPAC, in its proposed business combination with FC Barcelona, later terminated
- The conflicts committee of the board of NRG Yield in its sponsor NRG Energy’s $1.375 billion sale of its controlling interest in NRG Yield to an equity fund of Global Infrastructure Partners
- Panera Bread in its $7.5 billion acquisition by JAB
- Platinum Equity in its acquisition of a controlling equity stake, along with other noteholders, of Key Energy Services in a reorganization
- Raintree Systems in a significant investment from Serent Capital
- Royal Philips in its $2.8 billion acquisition of BioTelemetry
- Signify in its $1.4 billion acquisition of Cooper Lighting from Eaton and its $272 million acquisition of Fluence from ams OSRAM
- UnitedHealth Group in Optum’s $13.8 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare and its sale of ClaimsXten to TPG Capital for $2.2 billion and $3.7 billion pending acquisition of Amedisys
- Watlow in its sale to Tinicum
- Weir Group in its $405 million sale of its oil and gas division to Caterpillar
Education
J.D., Columbia Law School
- James Kent Scholar
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg Prize
B.A., Economics, Colgate University
- magna cum laude
Prior experience
- Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell, 2024-2025
- Associate, Sullivan & Cromwell, 2015-2023
Qualifications and admissions
- State of New York