Douglas Howell

Primary Focus & Experience

Mr. Howell represents U.S. and international clients in a broad range of public and private corporate matters across a wide range of industries, including cross-border and domestic mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate governance and general corporate matters. He also advises private equity firms, together with their portfolio companies, on the full range of transactions during all stages of the investment life cycle, including leveraged buyouts, minority investments, dispositions of investments and recapitalizations. His experience also includes advising strategic and private equity clients with respect to securities and capital markets transactions, carve-outs, restructurings, shareholder activism, spinoffs and other significant transactions.

Representative transactions include:

• United States Steel in its $14.9 billion sale to Nippon Steel, and the successful defense of a proxy contest launched by an activist investor. 
• AustralianSuper in its $1.5 billion investment in DataBank.
• Actis in its acquisition of the equity stakes in Enel Generación Perú S.A.A. and Compañía Energética Veracruz S.A.C. for approximately $1.3 billion.
• A large industrial gas supplier in its consolidating acquisition of all un-owned equity interests of a gas and welding supplies company.
• Veritas Capital (and its portfolio companies) in multiple matters, including:
  • the acquisition of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Company for $2.8 billion;
  • the acquisition of Grant Thornton’s Public Sector Practice; and
  • the acquisition of NWEA, a research-based organization that creates academic assessments for students.
• GE in the $11.1 billion combination of GE Transportation and Wabtec.*
• Brookfield Business Partners L.P. in its $13.2 billion acquisition of the Power Solutions business of Johnson Controls International plc.*
• Reckitt Benckiser in its $17.9 billion acquisition of Mead Johnson Nutrition.*

*Matter completed prior to joining Milbank.

Recognition & Accomplishments

In 2025, Mr. Howell was named as a “New York Metro Rising Star” by Super Lawyers. 

Mr. Howell received his J.D., magna cum laude, from Howard University School of Law, where he was a Henry Ramsey Dean’s Fellow and a Senior Articles Editor for the Howard Law Journal, and his B.S./B.A., cum laude, from the University of Richmond.