A dedicated group of attorneys at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and affiliates (“Skadden, Arps” or “Skadden”) provides advice for a broad range of clients on the formation and ongoing operations of private equity funds and the companies organized to sponsor and manage them. The firm’s attorneys have more than two decades of in-depth experience representing the sponsors and investors in private equity funds, and, as a result, Skadden attorneys bring to bear on behalf of our clients a sophisticated assessment of “market terms” not generally available in this non-public arena.
Our private equity fund attorneys frequently coordinate with Skadden’s network of international offices in transactions involving private equity funds organized to invest in specific nations or regions, such as China, India, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the Pacific Rim. Skadden attorneys work extensively on every category of private equity funds, including hedge funds, leveraged buyout or merchant banking funds, venture capital funds, real estate funds, including REITs, and hybrid funds that meld attributes usually linked either to traditional venture capital or buyout funds or to hedge funds. Moreover, our private equity fund attorneys are accustomed to providing clients with efficient and timely access to the unparalleled breadth of experience and resources offered by Skadden, Arps, whether for transactions involving mergers, acquisitions or debt or equity financings or for discrete questions requiring specialized knowledge.
Skadden attorneys have also served clients at the cutting edge of the recent, rapid-paced evolution of transactions that depart from the traditional approaches to the structure and ownership of private equity funds and their sponsors. Skadden’s attorneys have participated in domestic and foreign listings of investment vehicles sponsored by private equity firms, negotiated sales of minority equity positions in private equity firms and, most recently, the public offering of equity interests in firms that sponsor and manage private equity funds.
The firm’s attorneys worked on the organization of private equity funds that raised more than $20 billion in 2006. Clients we have represented in connection with private equity fund matters include Blackstone Financial Management L.P., Colony Capital, Inc., BEA Associates, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Fortress Investment Group, Fremont Group, Inc., HSBC Securities, Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, The News Corporation Limited, Pomona Capital, Travelers Group Inc., Wasserstein & Co., Inc., Wood, Struthers and Winthrop, Vulcan Inc. and Ziff Brothers Investments.
