Private Investment Funds
Drawing on our experience in a range of market sectors and investment strategies, we provide a full range of advice to clients in the global private investment funds industry. We advise fund sponsors and managers in forming new funds and managed accounts, assessing potential strategic arrangements and investment opportunities, and maintaining compliance with complex local and international regulations. We counsel institutional investors on structuring their global investment and training programs and represent them on their primary investments, co-investments, and secondary investments.
We represent global buyers and sellers of private fund and portfolio company interests in the secondary market. We also represent institutions in many varied special arrangements, including customized investment funds, separate accounts, joint ventures, seed arrangements, and myriad other structures and products.
Working from offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Dubai, Germany, China, and Japan, our investment management team includes more than 30 former officials from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and other oversight bodies. Our practitioners draw on this experience to counsel clients on making investments and staying compliant at a time when private funds are under heightened regulatory and investor scrutiny.
Our lawyers advise managers, investors, investment advisers, brokers, administrators, and custodians on an array of funds, including:
- Hedge funds
- Private equity funds
- Funds of funds
- Secondary funds
- Venture capital funds
- Real estate funds
- Mezzanine funds
- Distressed debt funds
- Clean-tech funds
- Corporate governance and activist funds
- Infrastructure funds
- Hybrid funds
- Impact (a.k.a. mission-related) funds
- Insurance dedicated funds
We work closely with clients to achieve their business objectives on a wide range of complex and innovative matters, including the following:
- Structuring participation by pension funds, financial institutions, and nonprofit organizations in both US and international funds
- Designing and structuring creative and tax-efficient management company and employment arrangements
- Ensuring compliance with regulatory limitations on investments in funds by regulated entities, such as banks and insurance companies, and on investments by funds targeting regulated industries, such as the telecommunications industry
- Minimizing US federal taxes or tax filing obligations for non-US persons
Ensuring compliance with relevant US laws such as the Securities Act of 1933, the Investment Company Act of 1940, the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the Commodity Exchange Act, the Internal Revenue Code, and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), as well as the laws of various international jurisdictions, including the European Union’s developing Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD).