A member of Davis Polk & Wardwell’s Corporate Department, Mr. Butler focuses on mergers and acquisitions, private equity transactions and general corporate representations.

Some of his recent significant transactions include:

• TPG-Axon in connection with its participation in Merrill Lynch’s issuance of an aggregate of $6.6 billion of convertible preferred stock

• Patriot Coal in its $750 million spinoff from Peabody Energy

• TPG-Axon in connection with its participation in the $8.8 billion Station Casinos LBO

• Huntington Bancshares in its $3.6 billion acquisition of Sky Financial

• TPG-Axon as a co-investor in the $3.4 billion LBO of Spirit Finance

• $750 million acquisition by First Advantage Corporation of businesses from First American (representation of special committee)

• Mercantile Bankshares in its $6 billion merger with PNC

• TPG-Axon in connection with its proxy contest for Triad Healthcare, which culminated in the $5.1 billion sale of Triad to Community Health Systems

• Mercantile Bankshares in its $212 million acquisition of Community Bank of Northern Virginia and its $43 million acquisition of James Monroe

• $10.5 billion acquisition of Charter One Financial by The Royal Bank of Scotland

• $26.1 billion merger of The St. Paul Companies and Travelers Property Casualty

• $38.6 billion merger of JPMorgan and Chase

• $50 billion merger of Pharmacia and Monsanto

• $5 billion merger of Medical Manager, CareInsite and Healtheon/WebMD (representation of special committee)

• $12.5 billion purchase of Banamex by Citigroup

• $1.8 billion tender offer by Delta Air Lines for Comair

Mr. Butler has represented a number of private equity and hedge fund investors, including Metalmark Capital, TPG-Axon, Morgan Stanley Capital Partners, Tailwind Capital Partners and Corsair Capital, on a wide variety of matters. He has also regularly represented corporate clients, including Aventine Renewable Energy Holdings, Roche AG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, on strategic, governance and general corporate matters. In addition, Mr. Butler represents several investment banks in connection with financial advisory assignments and tender offers.

Mr. Butler joined Davis Polk in 1999 and became a partner in 2002.

He graduated, summa cum laude, from Macalester College in 1991 and in 1994 received his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

In October 2007, The New York Times listed Mr. Butler, along with several other Davis Polk partners, as one of the leading dealmakers on Wall Street under 40 years of age (“Facebook of Wall Street’s Future,” NYT, Oct. 3, 2007).