Freshfields announced today that Joshua Ayal joined the firm’s M&A team in New York as partner.
Josh has extensive experience in high-profile public and private company M&A transactions for both strategic and private equity clients over the last decade. In addition to his focus on M&A, he advises corporations and their directors on activist defense and general corporate and governance matters.
“I’ve had the opportunity to work both alongside and opposite Josh, and have seen first-hand both his technical ability and his incredible commitment to client service,” said Damien Zoubek, Co-Head of US Corporate and M&A at Freshfields. “Josh is a great addition to our expanding market-leading M&A team and we are thrilled that he has joined us.”
Josh noted “Freshfields is making an impressive and noticeable impact in the U.S. M&A market and I’m excited to be joining this team of talented lawyers at this exciting time. I look forward to continuing to build my practice on the firm’s U.S. and global platforms and bringing to bear all of the firm’s expertise and scale to serve clients.”
Josh is the latest partner to join Freshfields’ U.S. M&A team following lateral partners Denny Kwon in Silicon Valley, Sanjay Murti, Steven Li and private equity M&A leaders Neal Reenan and Ian Bushner in New York, as well as recent partner promotions of Oliver Board and Tomas Rua in New York.
Josh joins a team ranked Band One for Corporate/M&A by Chambers Global and that finished 2023 in the number one position in Bloomberg’s cross-border M&A league table (by value). Additionally, Freshfields finished 2023 in the top 10 in Bloomberg’s U.S. M&A league table after having led $195 billion in total U.S. M&A deal volume last year.