Biography

Hannah B. Widlus is a partner at Seyfarth Shaw, and is a part of the Employee Benefits Group. Throughout 25 years of broad legal service, Hannah Widlus has designed, implemented and terminated all types of qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, retirement plans for tax-exempt organizations, welfare plans, executive compensation programs (including stock options and stock grants), and leveraged and reversionary ESOPs and has developed extensive knowledge of tax and ERISA issues, IRS and Department of Labor audits, employment agreements and disputes, general employment issues, and the employee benefits repercussions of mergers, acquisitions, leveraged transactions and divestitures.

Currently her practice focuses primarily on two areas:  (i) the investment of public and private pension funds and relationships with investment providers and (ii) executive employment and compensation issues for public, corporate and tax-exempt employers.

Ms. Widlus regularly advises clients regarding the propriety of plan investments; relations with insurers, mutual funds and other institutions; and fiduciary obligations, with particular emphasis on legal issues relating to the investment of the assets of pension funds and other institutional investors.  She advises investment managers, investment advisors, plan sponsors and boards of trustees regarding legal issues arising under ERISA, the Internal Revenue Code, federal securities laws and public pension laws in connection with pension fund investments as well as other fiduciary matters.  She is currently co-lead fiduciary counsel for a major Illinois public pension fund.

She also advises financial institutions regarding the structuring and implementation of investment transactions, vehicles and other products for public, corporate and tax-exempt pension plan investors, with particular emphasis on private equity and real estate funds, including real estate operating companies and venture capital operating companies.  Ms. Widlus regularly reviews and negotiates alternative investment vehicles for clients and works with sponsors of such investments in structuring, documenting and operating them in a manner suitable for investment by employee benefit plans.

Ms. Widlus counsels clients regarding employee benefit plan investment policies and negotiates investment management agreements between private and public pension funds and investment managers; structures investments and fees to avoid prohibited transactions; and advises fiduciaries on their obligations with respect to various issues, including proxy voting, hiring, firing and monitoring of service providers, etc. 

In addition, Ms. Widlus advises extensively on corporate, tax-exempt and public employers’ compensation matters, including equity compensation, deferred compensation, incentive compensation and golden parachute arrangements.  Ms. Widlus negotiates and drafts executive employment agreements, as well as executive severance and termination agreements.

Education

Admissions

• Illinois
• District of Columbia
• New York
• Texas