Professional Summary
Safari Watanabe is a partner in the Firm’s Corporate/M&A Practice Group in Tokyo. She has more than 10 years of experience practicing as a corporate transactional lawyer in Baker McKenzie’s San Francisco and Tokyo offices. Ms. Watanabe has extensive experience advising industry clients on corporate and transactional matters.
Practice Focus
Ms. Watanabe’s practice focuses on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, joint ventures and dispositions of companies and assets, with an increasing emphasis on complex cross-border transactions. She also assists Japanese and foreign clients in international joint ventures and strategic alliance arrangements, as well as other corporate transactional matters. Ms. Watanabe represents private and public companies – both foreign and domestic – across a wide range of industries, including technology, communications, electronic manufacturing and pharmaceutical.
Representative Clients, Cases or Matters
- Advised a global communications company in multiple cross-border transactions including public and private acquisitions, dispositions and spin-offs of major business units.
- Advised a global pharmaceutical company in multiple domestic and international transactions.
- Advised a leading food and beverage company in its cross-border acquisitions and international joint ventures.
- Advised an international consumer goods company in its cross-border acquisitions.
- Advised a global manufacturing and technology company in multiple international transactions including multi-jurisdictional acquisitions, dispositions and spin-offs of major business units.
Admissions
Foreign Registered Lawyer (gaikokuho jimu bengoshi)~Japan (2001)
California~United States (1994)
Professional Association and Memberships
- American Bar Association – Member
- State Bar of California – Member
- Tokyo Bar Association – Member
- Japan Federation of Bar Associations – Member
Education
University of San Francisco (J.D.)(1994)
Stanford University (B.A.)(1991)
Languages
Japanese
English