Makala M. Kaupalolo

Makala Kaupalolo is a Partner in Simpson Thacher’s Financial Institutions Practice and is based in the Palo Alto office. She regularly represents public and private financial institutions, as well as private equity sponsors, in a broad range of mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, investments and other significant corporate transactions and corporate governance matters. Makala works with clients across the financial services sector, including in fintech, banking, specialty finance and insurance.

Select financial services transactions include:

Financial Services Private Equity

• Sixth Street in its consortium acquisition of Select Portfolio Servicing from UBS/Credit Suisse
• Carlyle and Sedgwick in their acquisition of the legal spend management division of Bottomline Technologies

• BharCap Partners in its acquisition of Electronic Merchant Systems and acquisition of Insurvia*
• Further Global in its acquisition of a controlling stake in U.S. Claims*
• Stone Point Capital in its investment in TriState Capital Holdings, Inc.*
• Blackstone in its sale of Exeter Finance to an investor group led by Warburg Pincus*

FinTech

• JPMorgan Chase in:
• its agreement to become the issuer of Apple Card and its pending acquisition of over $20 billion of Apple Card balances; and
• the sale of its blockchain platform Quorum to, and concurrent strategic investment in, ConsenSys Software*
• Indus Valley Partners in its acquisition of IntegriDATA Business & Technology Solutions and strategic minority growth investment from PPC Enterprises
• Nasdaq in its spin-out of its private markets trading business (NPM) and concurrent investment in NPM by a consortium of bank partners*
• Bank of New York Mellon, Computershare, Clearstream, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase and State Street in their investment in Proxymity*
• American Express in its acquisition of LoungeBuddy*
• eToro Group Ltd. in its proposed (but terminated) business combination with FinTech Acquisition Corp. V*
• Worldpay in its $43 billion merger with FIS*

Banking and Specialty Finance

• Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation in various matters, including its sale of SMBC Rail Services to ITE and investment in Jefferies Financial Group*
• Banc of California in its merger with PacWest Bancorp and its concurrent $400 million equity raise from Warburg Pincus and Centerbridge*
• Flagstar Bancorp, Inc. in its $2.6 billion merger with New York Community Bancorp, Inc.*
• OceanFirst Financial Corp. in its separate acquisitions of four publicly traded and privately held community banks*, including its pending acquisition of Flushing Financial Corporation and its concurrent $225 million equity capital raise from Warburg Pincus
• United Auto Credit in its sale to Vroom, Inc.*
• CMS Energy in its sale of EnerBank to Regions Bank*
• Green Bancorp in its merger with Veritex Holdings*

Insurance

• American Financial Group, Inc. in its $210 million acquisition of Crop Risk Services, Inc. from American International Group, Inc.*
• BharCap Partners in its acquisition of Insurvia*

*includes experience prior to joining Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Makala received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2017 and her B.A. from Stanford University in 2012. She is admitted to practice in New York and California.