Jared Sine is the essence of why law firms should treat their young lawyers kindly and encourage them to go in-house with clients if they want.
This week, Sine, who is the chief legal officer at Plano-based Match Group, and his legal team inked the company’s $1.725 billion acquisition of Hyperconnect, a social discovery and video technology business based in Seoul, South Korea.
To handle the complex transaction, Sine turned to his old law firm, Latham & Watkins, and his good friend, Los Angeles partner Jason Silvera. In fact, he has turned to Latham to lead several major M&A deals during his time at Match and, prior to that, at Expedia.
Jared Sine
“I know there are a bunch of Texas lawyers asking why not them,” Sine told The Texas Lawbook in an interview Wednesday. “Jason and I have known each other since my time at Latham. He is very detailed and thoughtful, which this deal needed.”
The Hyperconnect transaction was the second largest since Sine arrived at Match in 2016.
Last year, he engineered Match’s $30 billion reverse spin-off from its parent company, IAC. The deal closed last July even as Sine and Match were involved in a heated intellectual property lawsuit against rival Bumble.
Leaders at Match and Hyperconnect first met in the fall of 2018. Last fall, despite the Covid-19 shutdown, discussions about a possible deal heated up.
“In normal times, I would have made multiple trips to Seoul and spent two to three weeks there,” he said. “Unfortunately, that was not a possibility.”
Sine said the time zone difference – South Korea is 13 hours ahead of Dallas – was a complicating factor.
“Late night calls and meetings for us were very early meetings for them,” he said. “None of us slept the last 48 hours anyway.”
Sine said he and his legal team have worked from home since last March when the pandemic hit.
There were some language barriers to overcome, but they handled those challenges quickly.
“Any time there is a hot commodity like Hyperconnect, there are several parties looking to negotiate,” he said. “It is a lot like dating – we showed them all of our good and they showed us theirs. Every deal has items that need compromise and where both sides come out uncomfortable. That’s when you know it is successful.”
Sine said transactions in which the business being acquired is still owned or controlled by the founder, which is the situation with Hyperconnect, means there are extra sensitivities.
“When buying from a private equity fund, everyone is dispassionate and it is about the money,” he said. “For company founders, this is their baby. They’ve called all the shots. It is much more than dollars and cents to them. It is about what you are going to do with their baby going forward. It is about their legacy.”
Sine said the four in-house lawyers with Hyperconnect in Seoul will join the Match legal team, which has about 60 lawyers and support staff. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter o this year.
On a separate, confidential yet related note, The Texas Lawbook has learned that Sine and his legal team’s work on the $30 billion reverse spin-off are finalists for the 2020 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are expected to announce all the finalists for the 14 award categories starting next week.