About Me
Named Dealmaker of the Week by The Am Law Daily for facilitating the financing and brokering of a $2.7 billion leveraged buyout of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s amusement park business by The Blackstone Group, corporate attorney Wilson Neely joined Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP as an Associate in 1982. A Partner at the global firm’s New York City headquarters since 1991, Mr. Neely focuses his practice in the areas of capital markets and securities as well as mergers and acquisitions. Wilson Neely also holds expertise in other types of private equity transactions, such as strategic partnerships with corporations and recapitalization.
In his position at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, a firm employing more than 800 attorneys in New York City; Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Palo Alto; Houston; and five foreign countries, Wilson Neely chairs the Compensation Committee and sits on the Finance Committee. For both The Blackstone Group and private equity firm Centerbridge Partners, L.P., he serves as primary outside counsel. In other significant buyouts, Wilson Neely assisted Blackstone in a joint purchase with Apollo Investment Corporation and Goldman Sachs of chemical company Ondeo Nalco for $4.3 billion and helped Centerbridge Partners acquire American Renal Holdings Inc.
In community service pursuits, Wilson Neely offers his time as a member of the Boards of Trustees of several organizations, including Historic Hudson Valley, the Urban Education Exchange’s ReadWorks, and the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction (NFFC). Historic Hudson Valley restores and promotes significant historic landmarks, and ReadWorks endeavors to close the reading-comprehension achievement gap through online and in-person training of K-6 educators. Wilson Neely works with NFFC to raise funding for the Institute of Reconstructive Surgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, which addresses the medical and psychosocial needs of individuals with facial deformities.
At Dartmouth College, where he graduated cum laude with a B.A., Wilson Neely interned for its famed President, the late John Kemeny, who assisted Albert Einstein and became co-creator of the BASIC computer language. Mr. Neely also earned a J.D. with honors at The University of Texas School of Law. He maintains memberships with the American and New York State Bar Associations.
