March 9, 2021 – Joele Frank provided PR counsel to the legal effort on behalf of George Bell, Rohan Bolt and Gary Johnson, who were incarcerated for over 24 years for a crime they did not commit. On March 5, 2021, The Hon. Judge Joseph A. Zayas of the Queens County Supreme Court ruled to vacate Bell, Bolt and Johnson’s convictions and all three men were released from prison.

Bell, Bolt and Johnson were convicted of the double homicide of two men in 1996. Bell and Johnson were just 19 and 22 years old at the time and Bolt, then a 35-year-old married father of four, owned a local Caribbean restaurant. No physical evidence ever connected any of the three men to the crime and all three men maintained their innocence. Evidence existed at the time of their arrest that pointed to other suspects, but prosecutors suppressed that evidence and withheld it from the defense teams and from the court.

The firm provided strategic PR counsel on this case on a pro bono basis, working in close collaboration with Bell, Bolt and Johnson’s legal counsel as they worked to bring justice to these innocent men. Firm Partners Joele Frank and Kelly Sullivan, Directors Jacob Silber, Melissa Johnson and Darcie Binder and Account Executives Joy Barnett, Paige MacPherson, Matt Cascio and Brennan O’Toole all contributed to the project.

February 1, 2021 – Joele Frank was recognized as the #1 M&A PR advisory firm in 2020 by The Deal, marking the eighth consecutive year the firm has been honored with the top spot. The Deal rankings reflect U.S. transactions valued at $100 million or more, of which Joele Frank advised on 86, including 39 for the acquirer and 47 for the seller.

Joele Frank was separately ranked as the #1 Global M&A PR advisor (by deal value) in 2020 by Mergermarket, which considers transactions valued at $5 million or more. The firm advised on 167 transactions valued at a total of $523 billion during the year.

The firm’s recent M&A work includes representing S&P Global in its $45 billion merger with IHS Markit; AON in its $30 billion acquisition of Willis Towers Watson; Salesforce in its $28 billion acquisition of Slack; Gilead Sciences in its $21 billion acquisition of Immunomedics; Bristol Myers Squibb in its $13.1 billion acquisition of MyoKardia; Concho Resources in its $9.7 billion acquisition by ConocoPhilips; and Grubhub in its $7.3 billion acquisition by Just Eat Takeaway, among others.

January 25, 2021 – The Deal named Joele Frank as the #1 bankruptcy communications advisor in 2020, a year that saw a 29% increase in corporate bankruptcies. The firm advised on Chapter 11 restructurings of approximately $78.3 billion in debt for companies across industries, including aviation, healthcare, oil and gas, real estate, retail and technology. This marks Joele Frank’s second consecutive year in the top spot.

The firm’s recent Chapter 11 assignments include advising Ascena Retail Group, Avianca Holdings, Denbury, Frontier Communications, J.C. Penney, Pier 1, Mallinckrodt, Oasis Petroleum, Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, Shiloh Industries and Skillsoft.

January 8, 2021 – Bloomberg recognized Joele Frank as the top corporate shareholder activism defense advisor in its 2020 Global Activism Market Review. Joele Frank advised companies on 74 activist situations and was recognized as the top activism IR advisor across a number of categories, including:

• Total Number of Engagements;
• Engagements for U.S. Companies;
• Engagements by Aggregate Market Capitalization; and
• Engagements by Aggregate Activist Stake Value.

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