Private Equity

Our full-service private equity practice supports the needs of sponsors and their portfolio companies, as well as sellers and management teams engaging in transactions with financial buyers. We have built the most integrated cross-border team among North American law firms to provide seamless service on transactions involving US and Canadian businesses and investors.

Investment Funds 

• Our Funds Practice specializes in guiding general partners through the legal, tax and regulatory intricacies of establishing and structuring investment funds to maximize their potential for success.
• Our team excels in representing institutional investors in primary fund investments and direct co-investments, offering expert legal counsel to limited partners seeking to navigate complex investment opportunities and secure their positions within various funds.
• Leveraging our market knowledge, we assist clients in the management of continuation funds, ensuring a smooth transition when extending the life of an existing fund.
• When it comes to executing LP secondary transactions, our team is skilled at providing legal support and strategic guidance to clients seeking to divest their interests in investment funds as well as efficiently managing the transfer process for buy-side transactions.
• We are well-versed in the world of GP-led secondaries, helping investors and fund managers navigate the complexities of the secondary market, whether for buying or selling fund interests, and facilitating smooth transactions.

Direct Investing (M&A)

• We represent both sponsors and sellers in platform and add-on mergers and acquisitions, providing sophisticated legal advice grounded in the commercial realities of our clients.
• Our primary focus is the middle market buy-outs, often involving founder-run businesses, with our industry and regulatory experience pushing us up-market in the Energy & Sustainability, Health Care, and Telecommunications sectors.

Portfolio Companies

• Our Portfolio Company Practice is intentional, and focused on meeting the legal and business needs of private equity-backed companies.
• We blend industry-leading transactional, employment, litigation, intellectual property, and regulatory experience with a sophisticated understanding of private equity structures and factors affecting portfolio companies.

Growth Equity

• A mix of our private equity and venture capital practices, our growth equity practice services financial sponsors as they engage in late-stage minority investments in profitable businesses.

Executive Representation

• We routinely represent Chief Executive Officers and the management teams of target companies being purchased by sponsors. Our representation includes the negotiation and documentation of managements’ rollover investments, rights as a minority shareholder, the terms of subsequent equity incentive grants and employment agreements.  

Litigation

• Our litigation team is nationally recognized as a “litigation powerhouse” with strong capabilities in bet-the-company commercial disputes, high-profile investigations, white-collar crime, securities litigation, and sophisticated employment disputes, with a particular focus on representing sponsors and their portfolio companies.

Government Services and Lobbying

• ML Strategies, our bipartisan government relations firm, leverages a wealth of political and business experience at the federal and state levels to create winning solutions for sponsors and their portfolio companies in legislative, executive, regulatory, and municipal lobbying.

Restructuring

• Not all investments work out, and when they don’t, our restructuring team steps in to advise sponsors on restructuring their portfolios, workouts, and shedding non-core assets.