From The Am Law Daily:

Nearly three years after emerging from bankruptcy protection, U.S. auto parts supplier Visteon has tapped Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to advise on its exit from a joint venture in China.

Visteon announced Tuesday that it would sell its 50 percent stake in Yanfeng Visteon Automotive Trim Systems, which makes dashboard, door panels, and other interior car components, to partner Huayu Automotive Systems Co. (HASCO) for $1.25 billion in cash.
Skadden M&A partner Shilpi Gupta, Asia corporate head Jonathan Stone, global tax head Hal Hicks, and antitrust partner Frederic Depoortere are leading a cross-border team from the firm advising suburban Detroit–based Visteon on the deal with HASCO. HASCO was advised by a team of lawyers from King & Wood Mallesons, led by M&A partner Richard Nie in Hong Kong.
Visteon was spun-off from Ford Motor Company in 2000, but subsequently lost more than $3 billion in the years after that deal, forcing its former parent to spend more than $1 billion bailing out the auto parts supplier as the U.S. auto industry struggled during the last decade. In May 2009, crippled by more than $5.3 billion in debt, Visteon filed for bankruptcy in Delaware.
Kirkland & Ellis, which had previously handled civil securities litigation for the debtor, and national bankruptcy boutique Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones took the lead for Visteon in its Chapter 11 case. Visteon spent 16 months in bankruptcy, emerging in October 2010 after shedding $2.1 billion in debt.
Skadden represented Visteon’s U.K. pension trustee, but was conflicted out of handling the bulk of the debtors’ Chapter 11 case due to its representation of other auto parts suppliers like Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy in 2005 after being spun off by General Motors, only to rise again two years ago through a $550 million initial public offering.
James Mazza Jr., a former Kirkland restructuring partner who advised Visteon during its Chapter 11 case, joined Skadden last year as counsel in Chicago. Skadden made another big hire this week in the auto parts liability arena by hiring Alston & Bird products liability cochair Lisa Gilford, whose clients include leading automaker Toyota, according to sibling publication The Recorder. (Skadden’s products liability group took a hit in April after practice leaders Sheila Birnbaum and Mark Cheffo defected to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.)
As for Visteon, Michael Sharnas has led the company’s in-house legal department since taking over from former general counsel John Donofrio in 2010, according to sibling publication Corporate Counsel. Donofrio left Visteon to become general counsel of Baton Rouge–based energy firm The Shaw Group, whose own $3 billion sale to rival Chicago Bridge & Iron closed earlier this year.
Earlier this year Foley & Lardner announced its hire of Donofrio’s predecessor Stacy Fox, who resigned as Visteon’s legal chief in 2005 with a $1.38 million severance package. Fox, who is of counsel with Foley’s corporate group in Detroit, also currently works for Detroit-based real estate development and consulting firm The Roxbury Group.
Jeffrey Jones, an attorney with South Korean firm Kim & Chang, is an independent member of the board of directors at Visteon. Jones, who learned to speak Korean as a Mormon missionary in South Korea, spoke with sibling publication The Asian Lawyer last month for a story about the country’s growing legal market.
Since exiting bankruptcy back in 2010, Visteon has been refocusing its business, tapping Squire Sanders for counsel last year on its $92 million sale of a lighting division to India’s Varroc Group, according to our previous reports.
Visteon’s plan includes shedding lower-margin units to bolster faster-growing operations in Asia, according to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters, which note that the current deal with HASCO calls for Visteon to separately spend $68 million to take control of an electronics unit joint venture with the Chinese automaker. Shanghai-based SAIC Motor Corp., China’s largest automaker by sales, owns 60 percent of HASCO, which hopes to close on its deals with Visteon by 2015.