March 28, 2007 - (Los Angeles, CA) - Proskauer Rose LLP, an international law firm with over 700 lawyers worldwide, has represented Ares Management LLC and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in their $1.65 billion buyout of General Nutrition Centers Corp., the world's largest retailer of nutritional supplements.

The transaction represents Proskauer's most recent deal on behalf of longtime client Ares Management, an independent Los Angeles-based investment management firm with over $11 billion in capital under management. The firm has also handled a number of important and complex acquisitions, investments, public stock offerings, and fund formations for the company and its affiliated entities including the recent closing of Ares Corporate Opportunities Fund II, a $2.065-billion fund focused on injecting flexible, long-term junior capital into undercapitalized middle-market companies.

Proskauer also represented Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan in the transaction. Ontario Teachers' is an independent corporation that invests fund assets and administers the pensions of Ontario's 163,000 elementary and secondary school teachers and 101,000 retired teachers. The plan has net assets of approximately $100 billion.

The Proskauer team involved in the transaction included Michael Woronoff, Christine Flores, Brent Pharis, Naseem Sagati, Frank Lopez and Stephen Rodin (Corporate); Andrea Rattner, Michael Katz and Ellen Czura (Employee Benefits); Gail Port and Kelly Baldwin Corso (Environmental); Neil Cummings and Lucia Sanchez (Finance); Dale Schreiber and Lisa Bauer (Franchising); Daniel Bernstein and Greg Sieczkiewicz (Intellectual Property); David Diamond (Labor); Scott Cooper and Navid Soleymani (Litigation); Eric Remensperger (Real Estate); and Raj Tanden (Tax).

Proskauer's Corporate Department consists of over 200 lawyers worldwide counseling clients in the full range of sophisticated financial transactions and daily business and regulatory matters including mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, private equity, finance, and bankruptcy. The firm's transactional practice includes: public and private mergers and acquisitions; public securities offerings, including IPOs; private equity fund transactions, including formation of private equity funds and leveraged buyout funds, and investments by institutional and private investors; private placement of securities and private financing; and leveraged buyouts and structured finance.