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Stifel Fund Banking is a division of Stifel Bank specialized in fund-level banking and lending for investment managers across all asset classes with a specific focus on simple, flexible, and competitive subscription credit facilities. Stifel also broadly offers investment banking services including M&A, debt and equity capital markets, restructuring, and other advisory services with expertise in a range of industry segments, as well as fundraising and placement agent services through its Eaton Partners subsidiary.
Carey Olsen is a leading offshore law firm. Our fund finance specialists have extensive experience of advising on all types of lending to investment funds in Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey and Jersey.
Our lawyers regularly deal with subscription facilities, GP leverage, co-invest facilities as well as hybrid and NAV based arrangements, with loan sizes ranging from tens of millions to billions of dollars. We work alongside all of the major onshore law firms, accountancy firms and insolvency practitioners on corporate transactions and matters involving our jurisdictions.
Our advice is delivered by an approachable and experienced team of globally-minded lawyers who work in partnership with our clients to help them achieve their objectives. We have the expertise and resources to handle the most complex international transactions combined with a personal approach to business.
Reed Smith is a market-leading international law firm specialising in funds finance. With more than 1,700 lawyers across 30 offices, we advise lenders and funds on capital call/subscription lines, NAV and asset-backed facilities, secondary funds facilities, hybrid facilities, co-investment and GP/manager support facilities and other fund liquidity facilities in Europe, the U.S., Asia and the UAE. We have one of the largest team of funds finance lawyers in London and provide specialist advice on the new and developing products in this area. Reed Smith has particular expertise with financings of direct lending, secondary and PE funds. Reed Smith’s funds finance team sits within our Financial Industry Group that contains more than 210 lawyers who provide dedicated multi-jurisdictional services to clients in the financial sector focusing on finance, funds and investment management, regulatory, tax, litigation and commercial restructuring and bankruptcy.
Katten is a full-service law firm with nearly 650 attorneys in locations across the United States and in London and Shanghai. Clients seeking sophisticated, high-value legal services turn to Katten for counsel locally, nationally and internationally. The firm’s core areas of practice include private credit, corporate, financial markets and funds, insolvency and restructuring, intellectual property, litigation, real estate, structured finance and securitization, transactional tax planning and private wealth. Katten represents public and private companies in numerous industries, as well as a number of government and nonprofit organizations and individuals. For more information, visit katten.com.
Bank of America (“BofA”) is a leading financial institution, serving individual consumers, small and middle-market businesses and large corporations with a full range of banking, investing, asset management and other financial and risk management products and services. BofA provides unmatched convenience in the United States, serving ~66 million consumer and small business clients with award-winning digital banking, with ~41 million active users, including ~32 million mobile users. BofA is a global leader in wealth management, corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions and individuals around the world. BofA offers industry-leading support to ~3 million small business households through a suite of innovative, easy-to-use online products and services. The company serves clients through operations across the United States, its territories and ~35 countries. BofA Corporation stock (NYSE: BAC) is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
With over 225 years of legal experience, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP serves a diverse client base, including many of the world’s leading financial institutions and corporations. With offices in New York, Charlotte, London and Washington, D.C., Cadwalader offers legal expertise in antitrust, banking, corporate finance, corporate governance, energy, environmental, executive compensation, financial restructuring, health care, intellectual property, litigation, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, private wealth, real estate, regulation, securitization, structured finance, tax and white collar defense. We have more than two decades of experience in fund finance, and provide practical, yet cutting edge, advice to a wide variety of financial institutions active in the space. Our team regularly represents the agent, lead arrangers and lenders on subscription credit and capital call facilities to real estate, private equity and other investment funds.
Seward & Kissel, founded in 1890, is a leading U.S. law firm with an international reputation for excellence. We have offices in New York City and Washington, D.C.
Our practice primarily focuses on corporate and litigation work for clients seeking legal expertise in the financial services, corporate finance and capital markets areas. The Firm is particularly well known for its representation of major commercial banks, investment banking firms, investment advisers and related investment funds (including mutual, hedge and private equity funds), broker-dealers, institutional investors and transportation companies (particularly in the shipping area).
The Firm’s attorneys are very experienced and highly regarded in their respective practice areas. Many have been with the Firm for most, if not all, of their legal careers. Our focus and expertise, combined with the Firm’s stability, have enabled us to create a work culture that is dedicated to professional excellence and sound judgment, and that is committed to providing our clients with effective, high quality, hands-on legal service.
Harneys is a global offshore law firm with entrepreneurial thinking. Our service is built around professionalism, personal service and rapid response. We have decades of experience providing offshore legal advice, having been established in the British Virgin Islands in 1960.
We provide advice on British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Bermuda* and Anguilla law to an international client base which includes the world’s top law firms, financial institutions, investment funds and private individuals. Our network is one of the largest among offshore law firms, with locations in major financial centres across Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Caribbean, allowing us to provide services of the highest quality to clients in their own languages and time zones.
We offer corporate, trust and fiduciary services through our associated corporate and private wealth services business, Harneys Fiduciary.
*Bermuda legal services are provided through Zuill & Co, an independently owned and controlled Bermudian law firm, in association with Harneys.
The Maples Group, through its leading international legal services firms, advises global financial, institutional, business and private clients on the laws of the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Jersey and Luxembourg, and is an independent provider of fiduciary, fund services, regulatory and compliance, and entity formation and management services. Combining the Maples Group’s leading finance and investment funds capability, the Group’s Fund Finance team has widespread experience in advising on all aspects of fund finance and related security structures for both lenders and borrowers. The Maples Group distinguishes itself with a client-focused approach, providing solutions tailored to their specific needs. Its global network of lawyers and industry professionals are strategically located in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East to ensure that clients gain immediate access to expert advice and bespoke support, within convenient time zones. For more information, please visit: maples.com.
Loeb & Loeb is a premier law firm with more than 400 lawyers across eight offices in the United States and Asia. Loeb lawyers are at the forefront of market developments and events that have the potential to impact our clients. We advise financial institutions lending to private equity and other investment funds at all stages, whether prior to initial investor closing or after the investment period has ended, and for funds that vary widely in structure, focus and goals. We also help market participants (including syndication agents, lenders, administrative agents and others) in structuring, negotiating and implementing subscription or capital call facilities, net asset value-based facilities and hybrid facilities. Loeb lawyers provide clients in the United States and across the globe with in-depth market knowledge, practical and innovative solutions, and effective representation to get their deals done and to meet their goals. Connect with us and experience the difference.
Loeb & Loeb is a premier law firm with more than 400 lawyers across eight offices in the United States and Asia. Loeb lawyers are at the forefront of market developments and events that have the potential to impact our clients. We advise financial institutions lending to private equity and other investment funds at all stages, whether prior to initial investor closing or after the investment period has ended, and for funds that vary widely in structure, focus and goals. We also help market participants (including syndication agents, lenders, administrative agents and others) in structuring, negotiating and implementing subscription or capital call facilities, net asset value-based facilities and hybrid facilities. Loeb lawyers provide clients in the United States and across the globe with in-depth market knowledge, practical and innovative solutions, and effective representation to get their deals done and to meet their goals. Connect with us and experience the difference.
Kate Sinclair is a Partner at the London office of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and a member of the Firm’s Banking and Credit Practice. Kate focuses on domestic and cross-border acquisition finance and fund financings. Kate acts for leading private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies advising on a broad range of financings.
Alex is Head of Structuring at MUFG Investor Services, straddling the business and legal sides of the firm. He and his team specialise in subscription line finance but are involved in other product lines including most notably asset servicing/fund administration. Globally his team’s book of subscription finance business is around $20 billion and they have around $650 billion of assets under administration.
Andrew has extensive experience advising on fund financing facilities, both syndicated and bilateral, and including: Manager/GP facilities, Private fund bridge / capital call facilities and Asset-backed/ NAV facilities.
Eniola Aluko is one of the leading figures in women’s football. During an impressive career on the pitch, she was a striker noted for her pace and finishing. Also regular in the media, she now serves as Aston Villa Women’s sporting director. She’s a double-FA Women’s Cup winner and three-time Premier/Super League champion, and was league top-scorer with Chelsea. Leaving London for Turin, she helped Juventus take the Serie A title in her first season with the club and went on to win the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana. She was also the team’s top scorer in her last season for the club. Alongside a successful club career Eni was a key figure in the London 2012 TeamGB squad and the England team during a period where the women’s game rose significantly in profile.
Born in Nigeria, Eni and her family moved to the UK when she was still a baby. She started her football career at Leafield Athletic Ladies before moving to Birmingham City, where she scored on her debut. Soon after she played her first match for England at the age of 14. She sat her A Levels at the same time as playing in the UEFA Women’s Euro tournament. There followed a successful spell at Charlton Athletic where she won the Premier League Cup, FA Women’s Cup, and the Community Shield. After a brief time at Chelsea, she played for three clubs in the US before returning to England and Birmingham City. At international level she was a regular goal scorer in World Cup and Euro competitions and was capped 100 times.
Eni was dubbed by some as the Wayne Rooney of the women’s game for her natural ability, creativity and eye for goal. Unlike the former Manchester United and England captain, however, Eni is also a qualified lawyer. Having taken her bar exams in New York and in London, she also worked in the City specialising in entertainment law.
Despite Eni’s impressive achievements on the pitch, she has had an arguably higher profile and as great a role to play off it. She was instrumental in revealing ingrained and often officially denied racism and discrimination by senior figures within the England team coaching set up, and serious problems within the wider FA. Her refusal to be silenced and willingness to stand up against outdated, offensive behaviour revealed a culture of intimidation and wilful blindness.
Eni speaks about the nature of teams, and creating a culture that both supports, encourages high performance, but also holds to account. She considers the best and worst of leadership and looks at what it takes to instil a winning mindset. She also examines what went wrong in the England set up and the important lessons all organisations can learn.
In the media Eni has appeared on Match of the Day, making her the first woman to appear on the BBC institution as a pundit. She’s added her voice to ITV, Sky and BBC coverage of the women’s and men’s game. She has written regularly for The Guardian on both the men’s and women’s game, and has also appeared on the quiz show Pointless Celebrities.
Robert Andrews is a partner in the Ashurst Global Loans practice. He specialises in advising financial institutions and funds on subscription/fund finance, including capital call facilities, NAV facilities, facilities for SMAs and hybrid financings as well as GP Co-Invest facilities. Robert was named a leading individual in the inaugural Legal 500 Fund Finance rankings (2021), with the Ashurst team ranked in Tier 1.
Camille Bourke is a Partner in the Private Equity & Real Estate practice of Arendt & Medernach. Head of the London office of the firm, she specialises in the formation of alternative investment funds (AIFs) and also advises on private equity transactions.
Camille worked at our Luxembourg and Brussels offices and founded the London office in 2007 where she is now the resident partner. Prior to joining Arendt & Medernach, Camille practiced in the New York office of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
She has been a member of the New York Bar since 2001, the Paris Bar since 2004 and has been admitted by the Luxembourg Bar to practice in Luxembourg under her French professional title.
She has been President of the Harvard Law School Association of the UK since 2019.
Camille Bourke holds a degree in business law from Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas as well as a Master’s degree (LL.M.) from Harvard University.
Paul Tannenbaum is a partner in the Banking & Finance practice of the London office. He has extensive experience acting for lenders, borrowers and financial institutions on both fund financings and acquisition and leveraged finance transactions.
Paul’s fund finance experience includes a wide range of transactions including traditional subscription lines, hybrid (NAV) facilities, GP support facilities, loans to separate accounts and fund of fund financings.
In addition, Paul has worked on a number of mid-market leveraged finance transactions in recent years, acting for UK and international lenders (including credit and debt funds) and sponsors on a variety of UK domestic and cross-border leveraged finance transactions, including private equity-backed leveraged buy-outs, management buy-outs/buy-ins, public bids, corporate M&A and recapitalisations.
Kate Downey is a corporate partner resident in Fried Frank’s London office, and head of the Firm’s European Private Equity Funds Practice. Ms. Downey advises fund sponsors and financial institutions across a broad range of asset classes, including private equity, venture and growth, infrastructure, credit and real estate. She counsels fund managers on carried interest, co-investment and other incentive arrangements, including leveraged co-investment arrangements. She also has considerable experience advising on a broad range of other international private equity transactions, including secondary portfolio acquisitions and synthetic secondaries, fund and management company restructurings and other general corporate matters. Ms. Downey co-chairs the European Committee of Women in Fund Finance, a group focused on recognition and promotion of women leaders within the alternative investment fund finance industry.
Sarah has worked in private debt markets and corporate finance for over 15 years. She has more than a decade’s experience in the fund finance space, originating and structuring over 80 transactions globally. After 7 years at Lloyd’s bank delivering financing solutions for the largest financial sponsors globally; she launched in 2018 the first dedicated fund finance advisory team in the world.
Prior to that she held different roles within leveraged finance, M&A and private equity.
Paul Tannenbaum is a partner in the Banking & Finance practice of the London office. He has extensive experience acting for lenders, borrowers and financial institutions on both fund financings and acquisition and leveraged finance transactions.
Paul’s fund finance experience includes a wide range of transactions including traditional subscription lines, hybrid (NAV) facilities, GP support facilities, loans to separate accounts and fund of fund financings.
In addition, Paul has worked on a number of mid-market leveraged finance transactions in recent years, acting for UK and international lenders (including credit and debt funds) and sponsors on a variety of UK domestic and cross-border leveraged finance transactions, including private equity-backed leveraged buy-outs, management buy-outs/buy-ins, public bids, corporate M&A and recapitalisations.
Mike Mascia is Co-Chair of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s Finance Group and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He has a globally recognized fund finance practice, having represented lenders in subscription credit facilities to real estate and private equity funds sponsored by many of the world’s preeminent fund sponsors. He has been lead counsel on numerous hybrid facilities, and is one of the few attorneys in the United States with experience in both subscription credit facilities and CLO’s. Mike represents lenders on leverage facilities to secondary funds and other credits looking primarily to fund assets or NAV for repayment. Mike is the founder of the annual Global Fund Finance Symposium and he is a founding member and the Secretary of the Funds Finance Association.
Kate has over 20 years’ experience of cross-border corporate finance transactions with particular experience in restructuring and corporate rescue (including debt-for-equity transactions), enforcement, insolvency, acquisition finance, fund finance and real estate finance.
Kate joined Carey Olsen in 2013 and became a Jersey advocate in February 2016. She previously worked in London, first with Clifford Chance and then with White & Case before joining Norton Rose. She also completed secondments at two investment banks.
Dirk Kaiser is a Director within Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking group. Mr. Kaiser is a relationship manager for alternative asset managers located in EMEA and focused on providing fund finance solutions, incl. subscription finance loans. Prior to joining Wells Fargo, Mr. Kaiser worked in the Credit Team at WestLB AG in both London and Düsseldorf covering non-bank financial institutions with a focus on traditional and alternative investment funds. Mr. Kaiser has approximately 15 years of experience in the financial sector.
Mr. Kaiser received a BA from Edinburgh Napier University in Business Administration and a Diplom-Kaufmann from University of Applied Sciences Aachen.
George has been at Citi for over 15 years and has worked on arranging some of the largest syndicated facilities in the European subscription facility market. Prior to leading the EMEA Subscription Finance business, he was responsible for general asset backed lending across a number of different asset classes including commercial real estate, art, aircraft and marketable securities. George started his Citi career in New York structuring corporate loan facilities for law firms. George has a first class honours degree from the University of Manchester.
Colin is a partner in Reed Smith’s Financial Industry Group, with extensive experience acting for both borrowers and lenders in fund financings. Colin’s practice encompasses a wide range of fund level finance transactions (including equity bridging, subscription line financing, investment warehousing, NAV facilities, GP facilities and carry/co-investment facilities), where he advises private equity houses, asset managers and financial institutions.
Colin is part of the Reed Smith fund finance team which was awarded Band 1 in Fund Finance by Legal 500 2021.
Aimee Sharman is a partner in the Banking & Finance practice of the London office. She has a broad client base across multiple fund and asset classes (private equity funds, credit funds, infrastructure funds, secondary funds, real estate funds, emerging market funds, hedge funds and more), acting for both borrowers and lenders on a wide range of financing products across the fund finance sector. Her extensive experience includes advising on bridge financing, GP support or co-investment facilities, fund of funds financing, NAV/asset backed facilities or hybrid facilities and preferred equity solutions.
Adebola Osakwe (New York) joined KKR in 2015 and is a member of the Human Resources Team, where she leads the Firm’s Inclusion and Diversity efforts. In her roles, she sits on the Firm’s Inclusion and Diversity Council, the IDC Advisory Group and the Inclusion Network Steering Committee. Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Osakwe was an executive director on Morgan Stanley’s diversity and inclusion team, where she spent almost 9 years. At Morgan Stanley, she served as head of diversity talent acquisition strategy partnering closely with the experienced and campus hiring teams. Prior to this role, she was a diversity coverage officer supporting the infrastructure and investment management businesses. Ms. Osakwe holds a Masters from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Barnard College, Columbia University.
In 2001, Samantha joined the Italian Air Force. She was admitted to the Air Force Academy as an officer candidate and served as class leader for four years. Following her graduation in 2005, she attended the Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program at Sheppard Air Force Base in the United States, where she earned her fighter pilot wings in 2006. Upon her return to Italy she was assigned to fly the AM-X ground attack fighter at the 51st Bomber Wing in Istrana.
Samantha was selected as an ESA astronaut in May 2009. She joined ESA in September 2009 and completed her basic astronaut training in November 2010. She was then assigned to the role of ESA reserve astronaut, which allowed her to earn her initial qualifications in EVA and robotics, as well as the certification as flight engineer of the Russian spacecraft Soyuz. In March 2012 she was assigned to fly as flight engineer on the Soyuz TMA-15M, as part of the crew of Expedition 42/43 on the International Space Station.
On 23 November, 2014 Samantha was launched from the cosmodrome of Baikonur in Kazakhstan. She returned to Earth on 11 June, 2015 after spending 200 days in space. The mission, which was given the name Futura, was the second long-duration flight opportunity for the Italian Space Agency, the eighth for an ESA astronaut.
After completing her post-flight tasks, while waiting for assignment to a second spaceflight, Samantha has been given technical and management duties at the European Astronaut Centre, which include serving on technical evaluation boards for exploration-related projects. For several years she led the Spaceship EAC initiative, a student-centred team working on the technological challenges of future missions to the Moon. She is now crew representative for ESA in the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway project.
Samantha is also part of a working group tasked with working with Chinese counterparts to define and implement cooperation in the field of astronaut operations. In 2017, together with fellow ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, she participated in a sea survival exercise organised by the Astronaut Center of China in the Yellow Sea. This was the first joint training of Chinese and non-Chinese astronauts in China.
In July 2015 Samantha was awarded the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic by the Italian president.
Sara Casey is an Investment Manager at Aberdeen Standard Investments and has been with Hark Capital since 2018. Ms. Casey is responsible for origination, execution and asset management of Hark Capital’s investments. Prior to joining Hark Capital, Ms. Casey was an Associate in the Loan Syndications and High Yield Capital Markets Group at Wells Fargo Securities. Previously, Ms. Casey completed the Investment Banking Capital Markets analyst program at Wells Fargo Securities. Ms. Casey received a B.S. from Providence College
Peter is a Managing Director in the Alternatives Capital Markets & Strategy Group (ACMS) within the Merchant Banking Division (MBD) of Goldman Sachs. He is responsible for global fund financing for MBD. He is also responsible for the hedging strategy in MBD as well as debt capital markets activity for the Infrastructure Investment Group.
Ms. Peluso is Chief Human Resources Officer and Senior Legal Officer for Cerberus. In her role, she oversees human resource management and talent acquisition globally for the Firm and its affiliates.
Ms. Peluso joined Cerberus in 2005 and prior to that, she was an Associate with Chadbourne & Parke LLP in New York, where her practice focused on representing private equity clients in M&A and securities and general corporate matters.
Ms. Peluso graduated from Binghamton University and received her J.D. from Cornell Law School. She is a member of Cerberus’ Securities Compliance Committee.
Jamie Parish is a senior counsel in the Finance Group at Travers Smith specialising in fund finance and real estate finance. He advises some of the most active participants in the fund finance space on the full spectrum of products, in particular investor call bridge/subscription facilities, NAV and hybrid facilities, GP support/co-invest facilities, and equity commitment-backed facilities to funds, GPs, managers and investors across a range of asset classes. Jamie’s clients include numerous private equity real estate funds who in addition to advising on fund finance products, he advises on all aspects of real estate debt financing, including investment finance, development finance, refinancings, and restructurings at all levels of the capital structure.
Adam Nowak (San Francisco) joined KKR in 2013 and is responsible for portfolio financing and derivatives structuring and execution for both Public and Private Markets. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Nowak worked in corporate treasury and corporate strategy groups at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Nowak holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
Seasoned Real Estate industry professional with 15+ years of relevant international experience of which 10+ years in the investment management business. Very solid network of contacts in the real estate industry containing investors, advisors, financial institutions and alternative lenders. Successfully enlarged institutional investor base by winning new substantial mandates, shaped new investment vehicles targeting different risk profiles, steered portfolio and asset management activities. Responsibility for commercial properties of approx. EUR 3bn in 5 countries – in Western Europe and CEE.
Prior to joining ECE Real Estate Partners in February 2010, from November 2007 to January 2010, Christian served as a Project Manager for Finance of ECE, where he was responsible for the financial analysis of numerous shopping centre developments and real estate transactions in Germany, Eastern Europe, Russia and Turkey.
Prior to joining ECE, Christian worked at Deutsche Genossenschafts-Hypothekenbank AG in the Credit Treasury Division, where he was responsible for the negotiation and project management of various transactions concerning securitisation and the sale of loan and real estate portfolios in Germany with a total transaction value of several billion Euros, which he joined in 2002.
Christian obtained a degree in Business Administration from the University of Würzburg (Bavaria) business school
Keenan McBrideKeenan McBride is a Vice President in Fixed Income Secured Lending at Morgan Stanley. Mr. McBride currently handles the origination, structuring, and distribution of subscription secured credit facilities for private equity funds globally, and has been covering the product exclusively for nine-plus years. His clients include top tier alternative asset managers headquartered in North America, Europe, and Asia. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Mr. McBride worked in the subscription finance group at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and on the leveraged finance syndications team at RBC Capital Markets. Mr. McBride graduated from Boston College.
Andrew has extensive experience advising on fund financing facilities, both syndicated and bilateral, and including: Manager/GP facilities, Private fund bridge / capital call facilities and Asset-backed / NAV facilities.
PEI is the specialist information group that focuses only on alternative asset classes. These have become essential components of institutional investors’ allocation strategies globally and we major in private equity, real estate, private debt and infrastructure whilst also engaging with emerging new asset classes too.
https://www.thisispei.com/?utm_source=FFAPEIMAI&utm_campaign=MP%20FFA%20MARCH%202019
Private Equity International
People’s United Bank N.A. is a subsidiary of People’s United Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: PBCT), a diversified financial services company with $61 billion in assets and an A- rating from S&P. Founded in 1842, People’s is a premier, community-based bank in the Eastern U.S. offering commercial banking, retail banking and wealth management services through a network of over 400 office locations.
First Republic and its subsidiaries offer private banking, business banking and private wealth management, including investment, trust and brokerage services. First Republic specializes in delivering exceptional, relationship-based service, with a solid commitment to responsiveness and action. Our dedicated private equity and venture capital team, based in innovation hubs across the U.S., serves the needs of the investment community with resources, connections and guidance.
Allen & Overy is an international legal practice with over 5,500 people, including more than 550 partners, working in more than 40 offices worldwide. Since opening its first office in London in 1930, the firm has grown into a global organisation across 30 countries including in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas, Africa, Australia and the Middle East. Our clients and people are at the centre of everything we do and we pride ourselves on the excellent relationships we have built over the years. We foster creative, independent thinking within a collaborative culture allowing our lawyers to become actively involved in many of the most market first and ‘one-of-a-kind’ transactions. We are known for providing our clients with transformative solutions to the toughest legal challenges. This, above all, explains why we are a leader in our field. Through our international network of offices, we respond to our clients’ needs quickly and effectively, on a coordinated worldwide basis.
Aberdeen Standard Investments is dedicated to helping investors around the world reach their desired investment goals and broaden their financial horizons.
We seek to provide world-class investment expertise across a breadth of markets and asset classes. Our full range of solutions span equities, multi-asset, fixed income, liquidity, sovereign wealth funds, real estate and private markets. Coupled with a wide range of investment approaches, we transform new investment ideas into practical investment products designed to deliver real value for money to investors.
With employees in more than 40 locations worldwide, our operations extend across global financial capitals and important regional centres. This brings us closer to our clients and customers around the world, and provides invaluable knowledge and insight to share with our people.
Today, we manage a total of £455.6bn (€501.2bn/$562.9bn) of assets on behalf of governments, pension funds, insurers, companies, charities, foundations and individuals across 80 countries (as at 30 June 2020). As a responsible global investor, we leverage our scale and market position to raise standards in both the companies and industries in which we invest, and help drive best practice across the asset management industry.
For over 40 years, Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management has served the needs of ultra high net worth individuals, their families and foundations. By providing advice founded on a culture of excellence and driven by global insight, Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management is devoted to helping our clients preserve and grow their financial, family, and social capital. As a Boutique Group Within a Leading Global Firm, Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management is Well-Positioned to Serve Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, Families and Their Foundations Around the World.
Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, a division of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC. Member SIPC.
Kate Sinclair is a Senior Counsel in the London office of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and a member of the Firm’s Banking and Credit Practice. Kate focuses on domestic and cross-border acquisition finance and fund financings. Kate acts for leading private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies advising on a broad range of financings.
Katherine has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 2002.
Prior to joining Arkkan in 2018, Katherine led Goldman Sachs’ Asia Pacific prime services consulting team assisting Asian and global hedge funds to build and grow their businesses in the region. This included consulting on hedge fund establishment, fund structuring, business expansion and market access.
Between 2006 and 2010 Katherine was regional legal counsel Asia Pacific for Janus Capital Group. From 2003 to 2005, Katherine was legal counsel at Sidley Austin, Hong Kong where she helped establish their hedge fund practice. Katherine began her career in 1998, as a lawyer at Mallesons Stephens Jaques, Melbourne.
Katherine serves on the Global Council (Director) of the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) and is a member of AIMA Hong Kong’s Executive and Regulatory Committees, having chaired AIMA Hong Kong from 2016 – 2020 and the Regulatory Committee from 2012-2018.
Katherine also serves as a member of the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong’s Product Advisory Committee and is an inaugural member of the University of Melbourne’s Asian Advisory Board, both by invitation.
Katherine holds a BSc/LLB (Hons) (Chemistry, Mathematics and Law), from the University of Melbourne and is admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court of Victoria and the High Court of Australia.
Rodney is Chairman and co-founder of Cornerstone Partners, the leading UK angel network focused on investing in black and diverse founders. Prior to co-founding Cornerstone Partners, Rodney was a Director at Foresight Group, one of the UK’s leading and longest established investors in growing businesses, and a senior investor at the Business Growth Fund, one of the most active growth capital investment firms in the world. He has worked in venture capital for nearly a decade, leading more than 15 investments and delivering a number of successful exits including the sale of Unruly Media to News Corp (£114m), the sale of Decision Technologies to Money Supermarket Plc (£40m) and the sale of Clubhouse Golf to All4Golf (terms undisclosed). A seasoned board director, Rodney is Chairman of the CBI London U35 Committee, an advisor to a number of early stage businesses, and an NED for a leading private investment platform focused on driving positive social and environmental change.
Haakon is a Partner at Validus, a leading independent financial services firm providing financial risk management, fund finance advisory and technology solutions to GPs and LPs globally. As the Chief Commercial Officer he is responsible for the continuing expansion of the firm, across geographies, services, and client sectors. He also works closely with clients and industry participants on thought leadership in the private capital space, with a specific focus on risk management.
Michelle Bolingbroke is Director of the Fund Finance Association. Michelle has over 14 years’ experience in marketing and business development in the financial services industry and has served on the marketing committee of the FFA since inception. She supports the Board, WFF, NextGen, FFA University, FFA Mentor Program, and FFAs new Foundation initiatives. Prior to joining FFA, Michelle was Americas Head of Business Development at a global offshore law firm based in Cayman.
Fiona Chan is a partner in the corporate department, leading the office’s full spectrum of finance, banking, non-contentious insurance, private client and trust, and technology and innovation matters relating to the laws of Bermuda, BVI and Cayman Islands. She is also a member of Appleby´s Global Technology & Innovation Group and Economic Substance focus group.
Fiona has almost 20 years of offshore and onshore experience in the Asian market, half of which was spent in the London and Hong Kong offices of Clifford Chance.
Fiona was selected as one of the region’s 10 most notable offshore lawyers in Asian Legal Business’ Offshore Client Choice List in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.
Fiona regular speaks at international conferences and offers seminars and training to various law firms and organisations. These include 2019 Asia-Pacific Fund Finance Symposium; 2019 Blockchain for Finance conference and roundtable discussions organised by BVI House Asia to name a few.
Her expertise is frequently sought by industry and legal journals. Apart from being an active contributor to Asia Legal Business, China Business Law Journal, IFC Economic Report, China Daily etc. She is also the editor of Appleby Asia Alert, Appleby’s quarterly update to Asian clients on offshore legislative developments.
As Managing Director of Industry Affairs for the Institutional Limited Partners Association (ILPA), Jennifer Choi directs the association’s engagement with industry stakeholders to inform and enhance ILPA’s content, membership and advocacy platforms. Ms. Choi also leads the implementation of ILPA’s responses to emerging issues impacting the asset class, including efforts to establish and promote industry best practices.
Prior to joining the ILPA, Ms. Choi served as Vice President of Industry and External Affairs for the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association (EMPEA), where she led the association’s member and industry engagement activities, including efforts to encourage policy frameworks that support the growth of the asset class. As EMPEA’s Research Director, she built the industry’s first global database of private equity activity in the emerging markets. A frequent speaker and commentator on the industry, Ms. Choi also oversaw the association’s media communications and global institutional partnerships. Previously, Ms. Choi was a consultant with Boston-based Stax Inc., leading due diligence engagements and providing advisory services for the U.S. private equity and venture capital industry.
Jennifer holds a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a B.A. summa cum laude in Economics and Political Science from Augustana College.
Mr Cunningham has overall responsibility for all matters relating to accounting, financial control, taxation, fund administration and reporting and regulatory compliance for the Helios group entities. An experienced private equity finance and administration executive with 32 years in the industry, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer for Barclays Private Equity (“BPE”) for six years prior to joining Helios in May 2008, and previously as Director, Head of Finance & Product Control Projects at Barclays Capital. His responsibilities included the reporting and administration of various managed funds as well as internal reporting / administration for BPE’s proprietary business. Mr Cunningham is Chairman of the International Private Equity and Venture Capital Valuation Guidelines (“IPEV”) Board. Prior to joining Barclays, he worked within the finance functions of various major investment banks, including Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with Ernst & Whinney in 1989. He graduated with a BS (Hons) in Mathematics from Imperial College.
Justin is an investment funds partner in the Hong Kong office of Kirkland & Ellis. Justin advises private equity fund managers in relation to the structuring and establishment of private equity investment funds, secondary transactions, carried interest arrangements and co-investment plans. He also advises on a broad range of transactions relating to the restructuring of private equity funds, leveraging and refinancing of such funds and buy-outs and spin-offs relating to the management houses.
Prior to relocating to Hong Kong, Justin spent more than 10 years in London working with leading private equity sponsors with a particular emphasis on structuring complex multi-jurisdictional funds. Justin has represented, among others, Actera Group, Archer Capital, Ascendent Capital, BGH Capital, The Carlyle Group, Centurium Capital, CITIC Capital, CPPIB, Creador, Crescent Point, Dignari Capital, Edelweiss Group, FountainVest Partners, Forebright Partners, Genesis Capital, GLP, HarbourVest, Hillhouse Capital, Kerogen Capital, Lime Tree Capital, NewQuest Capital Partners, OTPP, Orchid Asia, Saratoga Capital, SSG Capital, TPG Capital, Värde Partners and Warburg Pincus.
Kate Downey is a corporate partner resident in Fried Frank’s London office, and head of the Firm’s European Private Equity Funds Practice. Ms. Downey advises fund sponsors and financial institutions across a broad range of asset classes, including private equity, venture and growth, infrastructure, credit and real estate. She counsels fund managers on carried interest, co-investment and other incentive arrangements, including leveraged co-investment arrangements. She also has considerable experience advising on a broad range of other international private equity transactions, including secondary portfolio acquisitions and synthetic secondaries, fund and management company restructurings and other general corporate matters. Ms. Downey co-chairs the European Committee of Women in Fund Finance, a group focused on recognition and promotion of women leaders within the alternative investment fund finance industry.
For seventeen years Robert Duggan has practised as a Cayman Islands attorney, specialising in the establishment and ongoing operations of investment funds as well as providing representation for banks and other financial institutions on their transactions with investment funds. Legal directories note that Rob is ‘one of the best lawyers in the investment fund space [who] gets to the heart of complex issues quickly [and] provides clear and constructive commercial solutions‘.
In February 2021 Rob will draw upon his experience as a trusted advisor in the investment funds space, as he starts a new business in the Cayman Islands as an independent director and governance consultant to asset managers and to investment funds.
James Gaden is a partner in the Global Corporate and Investment Funds Groups of Walkers’ Hong Kong office. He has over 15 years’ experience advising the investment funds industry. He specialises in advising private equity and hedge fund managers on a broad spectrum of legal issues including fund formation and structuring, acquisitions and disposals, fund restructuring and fund financing.
In addition, James has an active corporate practice which includes providing general corporate advice on corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. He also advises companies, LLCs, partnerships and their investors in relation to a variety of different financing transactions. James advises clients from across the region including in Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Australia. James is a respected practitioner in the investment funds industry and is a regular speaker at industry events.
James is consistently ranked by legal directories. Most recently in the Chambers Asia Pacific 2020, ‘James Gaden is praised by one client as an “extremely respected lawyer” with a “stellar reputation in the Japanese financial community.” He has extensive experience of advising the investment funds industry on fund formation and structuring as well as investment work.’
Prior to joining Walkers in 2018, James was a partner at another leading offshore law firm where he worked from 2010 to 2018 in Hong Kong. He also worked in the Investment Funds team of the Hong Kong office of Sidley Austin and before that, at Gilbert & Tobin in Sydney.
Jorge Grafal is Vice President of the Fund Finance business at Mizuho Americas. Jorge joined Mizuho Americas as part of the firm’s initiative to grow its presence within the Fund Finance industry in January, 2020, having previously worked at National Australia Bank and SMBC. He also serves as a key point of contact within Mizuho for ancillary business opportunities across its full spectrum of products and services. Jorge has been a funds banker for almost 10 years, with a focus on subscription finance facilities, NAV facilities, fund-level foreign exchange services and tailored credit products for private equity employees’ GP commitments. He is currently Co-Head of New York’s FFA NextGen Network.
Fabrice Guesde took up his role as Head of Global Structured Credit & Solutions (GSCS), Asia Pacific in April 2016. Based in Hong Kong, he is responsible for overseeing the development of Natixis’ structured credit solution offering in the region, including across asset-backed securities (ABS), collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), capital call facilities and fund financings, and a range of bank and insurance regulatory solutions.
Fabrice has over 25 years’ experience. He began his career in 1989 at Manufacturers Hanover Bank (now JPMorgan Chase), based in Paris, and in 1991 joined Bayerische Landesbank, Paris Branch as Head of Credit and then Head of Structured Credit & Syndication. In 1996 he moved to Commerzbank as Head of Corporate Banking and Structured Credits, France, and in 2003 he joined European IT business-to-business service provider Econocom as Group Financial Director. He joined Natixis in 2006 as Head of Commercial Coordination in the Structured Finance and Market platform, and in 2008 was appointed Head of Debt Engineering. In 2011, Fabrice was named Head of Credit & Insurance Solutions as part of the creation of the GSCS business line, subsequently overseeing the setup and development of Natixis’ capital call and fund financing business for Europe.
Fabrice is a graduate of Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris, and holds a Master of Law degree from University of Paris II. In addition to French, he speaks English, German and Dutch.
Bo leads SVB’s Hong Kong office, focused on providing financial services to private equity and venture capital firms throughout Asia. He also is leading SVB’s Southeast Asia expansion efforts, developing relationships with strategic partners in the innovation economy and delivering a range of financial services. These services include capital strategies and solutions, global banking, rich industry connections and insights. Bo has previously held several roles and capacities in the US and Asia within the banking, investing, and global expansion teams.
Deniz Harut is a global leader in sustainable finance, unlocking public and private funds and raising capital for the most pressing issues challenging our world today, particularly in the areas of the climate crisis and gender equality.
Executive Director, Head of Sustainable Finance (Europe & America) at Standard Chartered Bank, Deniz has over fifteen years’ experience in emerging markets, international development finance and impact investing, advising governments, companies, investors and sovereigns for significant societal benefit.
Her current work includes developing a data science-backed gender-smart investment platform to unlock capital for female leadership initiatives, entrepreneurs and female-led SMEs. She has secured pre-seed funding and upon completion this will be the world’s first algorithm-based investment platform to prove the economic profit benefits of gender equality and diversity in business.
Deniz is Honorary Treasurer at FoodCycle not-for-profit, Member of the Board of Trustees at RichMix arts centre in east London, Founder-Director of Veggie Option sustainable living platform, and a Cordon Bleu Certified Chef.
Terry Hatton is a Managing Director and head of the Fund Finance Group for MUFG in New York. MUFG’s fund client base includes real estate, mezzanine, infrastructure, energy, private equity and venture capital. The bank has built an established track record, providing fund sponsors with competitive lending products, inclusive of subscription and bridge capital call facilities; senior and asset-based debt financing for general industries, as well as health care, environmental, and aerospace and defense. Terry has a bachelor’s degree from University of Western Ontario.
Jeff Johnston, CFA, is a Managing Director and the Head of Asset Management within Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking group. Mr. Johnston oversees a team of corporate and investment bankers who deliver a broad array of products and services, inclusive of advisory, debt and equity capital markets, subscription finance, management company loans, treasury management & depository services and other banking products for traditional and alternative asset managers globally.
Mr. Johnston is a CFA charterholder and received a BA from the University of South Florida in Physics, and is currently the Chairman of the Fund Finance Association, a global industry association for constituents in the fund finance space.
Bronwen is co-head of the Reed Smith fund finance team, based in London. She acts for banks and other financial institutions, sponsors, general partners and fund managers on the whole range of fund finance matters including capital call facilities, NAV and asset backed facilities, general partner facilities and co-investment facilities.
Kaikobad (Kaiko) is the Chief Investment Officer of Chorus Capital, where he responsible for the investment function. He joined Chorus Capital in February 2014 from the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) where he worked from 1998 -2013 (starting at ABN AMRO, prior to its acquisition by RBS). At RBS, Kaiko was part of the management team for Global Banking and Markets Treasury, and Head of Treasury Structured Solutions from 2006 – 2012. He has 28 years of financial markets experience, having worked within Asset Management, Financial Institutions, Treasury, Credit Portfolio Management and Structured Finance.
Daniel Liao is Global Head of Funds Risk and ABS at Standard Chartered Bank has over 15 years of experience in managing counterparty credit risk of traditional and alternative investment vehicles. He has additional risk management responsibility in overseeing the ABS risk at Standard Chartered Bank. Daniel has moved to Singapore in 2019 to become the global head from New York where he was the regional head of Funds Risk for Americas and had lived in the US for a few decades. He is also serving in the ISDA SIMM model governance Executive Committee on behalf of the bank and participated in the development of the industry SIMM model and approvals from global regulators. Daniel also has prior experience in the energy market sales and trading and reinsurance industry IT system development. He holds a MS from Purdue University in Electrical Engineering and an MBA from Cornell University.
Chris has worked in loan syndications since 1997 and has held various positions in sales and syndicate whilst at Societe Generale, UBS Warburg, ING and now at Natixis. Whilst at Societe Generale and UBS Chris transacted on event-driven/M&A-related financings. He joined ING in 2005 as a Loan Sales and Syndicate professional when he was assigned to the Amsterdam head office as EMEA Head of Structured Loan Syndicate. In 2013 he joined Natixis as Global Head of Loan Syndications covering Leveraged/Corporate Loans & Real Assets Syndicate, Sales & Trading. In 2016 he was appointed Global Head of High Yield Corporate Loan Distribution & Trading. He is now Co-Head of Global Credit Syndicate incorporating Leveraged/Corporate, Real-Asset (e.g. Real-Estate, Infrastructure & Energy Transition, Global Trade, and Aviation), Bond and Alternative Credit Syndicate at Natixis. His main focus today is developing new avenues of distribution for loan product in an expanding private credit market.
Jeff T. Maier is a Senior Managing Director on First Republic Bank’s Private Equity Finance team. Jeff has been working in private equity in various capacities since 2002 when he joined JPMorgan’s proprietary private equity group, JPMorgan Partners. Jeff continued with JPMorgan Chase & Co. after the JPMorgan Partners spin-out in 2005 and was instrumental in the build out and business development efforts of JPMorgan’s Private Equity Fund Services business; a leading provider of third party fund administration and banking services to private equity funds globally. In 2012 Jeff joined Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) to launch their Private Equity Services business in New York. During his tenure at SVB, Jeff was able to grow the New York Private Equity and Venture portfolio from ~$1B in loan commitments to over $6B in loan commitments. Jeff has extensive middle office, back office and business development expertise in private equity, including banking and lending to some of the leading private equity firms in the world. His team at First Republic Bank has executed on over $5B in loan commitments to leading private equity and venture capital firms.
Jeff holds a law degree from the University of Missouri and a B.S. from Illinois State University.
Gurpreet Manku is the BVCA’s Deputy Director General and Director of Policy, and a BVCA board member. She is responsible for leading the BVCA’s response to a wide range of policy challenges facing the industry from a legal, tax, reporting and regulatory perspective, both in the UK and Europe (including Brexit). Gurpreet is a member of the board of the Cost Transparency Initiative and is a member of the coalition that developed the Wates corporate governance principles for large private companies. She is also the executive liaison to the Private Equity Reporting Group, the body responsible for monitoring the industry’s compliance with the Walker Guidelines on Transparency and Disclosure. Gurpreet is passionate about improving diversity within the venture capital and private equity industry and leads the BVCA’s efforts to support firms. Before joining the BVCA, she worked at Deloitte LLP and specialised in auditing and advising private equity funds and their managers. Gurpreet studied at the London School of Economics and is a Chartered Accountant and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
Mike Mascia is Co-Chair of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s Finance Group and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. He has a globally recognized fund finance practice, having represented lenders in subscription credit facilities to real estate and private equity funds sponsored by many of the world’s preeminent fund sponsors. He has been lead counsel on numerous hybrid facilities, and is one of the few attorneys in the United States with experience in both subscription credit facilities and CLO’s. Mike represents lenders on leverage facilities to secondary funds and other credits looking primarily to fund assets or NAV for repayment. Mike is the founder of the annual Global Fund Finance Symposium and he is a founding member and the Secretary of the Funds Finance Association.
Tina is head of Maples Group’s Finance team in the Maples Group’s Cayman Islands office. She leads the Fund Finance practice and also has extensive experience in all aspects of banking, derivatives and securitisations. Tina represents hedge funds, private equity funds and banks on fund finance and other lending transactions, bank products, deal structures and on all types of secured transactions. She advises a large number of international associations and financial institutions on derivatives and issues surrounding related collateral packages in the context of insolvency in the Cayman Islands. She also has significant experience of general corporate and commercial matters and the establishment of offshore investment funds.
Tina joined the Maples Group in 2005 and was elected as a partner in 2012. She previously worked for Lovells where she completed a secondment to Citibank. Tina has been recommended in Chambers Global, Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal.
Andrew W. Mitchell is an international thought leader on natural capital finance and tropical forests. Founder of Equilibrium Futures, he provides strategic advice on natural capital to the finance sector; he is also Senior Adviser to Oxford think tank, Global Canopy, which he founded in 2001. As Founder and Senior Adviser to the Natural Capital Finance Alliance, he helps to design natural capital tools for banks, investors and insurers and is Senior Adviser to Mirova Natural Capital, a global impact investment fund.
He is an international thought leader on tropical forests, climate change and financing natural capital. He has extensive field experience in Asia, Africa and Latin America, across a forty-year career spanning scientific research, conservation and finance for forests. He works to demonstrate the scientific, political and business case for safeguarding sustainable forests and landscapes as natural capital that underpins water, food, energy, health and climate security for all.
Nick Mitra manages the Capital Call and Hybrid Facility business for Natixis for the Americas Prior to joining the Global Structured Credit & Solutions Group at Natixis, Nick worked in the credit group at Natixis covering Financial Institutions and Insurance Companies. He has also worked at Goldman Sachs and Accenture in different roles and was the CFO of an entrepreneurial start-up – UConnections.com – aimed at the education space. Nick started his career at Lehman Brothers as a trader’s assistant in the security lending area. Nick has approximately 17 years of experience in the financial sector.
Nick is also a co-founding member of the Fund Finance Association, an industry group dedicated to Fund Finance, where he serves on the Board of the Association as the First Vice Chairman.
Nick is also a co-founding member of the Women in Fund Finance, an industry association dedicated to supporting diversity and the participation of women in the alternative capital space, where is the Co-Chairperson of the Board.
Nick holds dual MBAs in Finance and Information from NYU and a BS in Finance from Lehigh University and is a CFA charter holder.
Shelley Morrison is a Senior Investment Director in Fund Financing at Aberdeen Standard Investments where she leads the strategy for subscription finances and sits on the Fund Finance Investment Committee. She has been with ASI since 2019 and has extensive experience in the origination, structuring and execution of fund level debt facilities. Before joining ASI Shelley was a Relationship Director in the Fund Finance team at RBS for 6 years where she managed a portfolio of subscription loans, NAV loans and GP finance facilities. Shelley received a first class honours degree in Geography and an MSc in Social and Political Theory, both from the University of Edinburgh.
Jad’s core practice is in handling cross-border lending transactions, advising on fund finance, acquisition finance, debt capital markets and debt restructuring. He has particular expertise in sophisticated international financing techniques acting for major international financial institutions and private equity houses.
Prior to joining Ogier, Jad worked for other high profile law firms and a major European bank. He has more than 15 years’ experience working on Luxembourg matters and worked for several years as head of the Luxembourg desk of a European law firm in New York.
Jad is active in academic circles and regularly speaks on subjects such as cross-border lending, financial collateral, banking regulations, securities law and restructuring as well as fund finance.
Jad is a member of numerous professional associations including the American Bar Association, the American Chamber of Commerce in Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Association of Banking Lawyers, the IBA and the New York City Bar Association.
Gopal Narsimhamurthy is a Senior Director within the Funds Rating Group at Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA). Mr. Narsimhamurthy has been with KBRA since 2014 and has worked across a number of analytical areas including structured finance, public finance, and project finance. From September 2017 to August 2019, he relocated to Dublin, Ireland to provide analytical coverage for European structured finance transactions and support KBRA’s growth initiatives across the region. Previously, he was an Associate Analyst at Moody’s Investors Service where he specialized in higher education and healthcare credit analysis. Mr. Narsimhamurthy holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Rutgers University and a Masters of Public Administration with a concentration in Finance from New York University.
Michael’s practice concentrates on the formation, operation and restructuring of private investment funds, primarily private equity and venture capital funds, and their related fund sponsor vehicles.
Michael also represents early and later stage companies in a range of industries, including fintech, life sciences and technology, in relation to private financings, listings, cross-border investments and other M&A transactions.
Michael lived and worked in the Cayman Islands before returning to Hong Kong and has a wealth of experience dealing with inbound and outbound China deals.
Prior to joining Carey Olsen, Michael was a partner in the global investment funds group of another offshore firm based in the Cayman Islands for seven years, having previously spent over four years in its Hong Kong office.
Michael was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales in 2002, a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 2012, a solicitor of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of the British Virgin Islands in 2012 and as an attorney-at-law in the Cayman Islands in 2012.
Terrance Philips is a Managing Director at Citi Private Bank, based in Hong Kong. In his role he is responsible for developing relationships with General Partners of Private Equity Firms and their respective Funds across Asia. Philips coordinates with his partners to deliver the Citi Bank platform to the Private Equity asset class to include; Subscription Facilities, Private Banking, Funds Services, Investment Banking and Funds Distribution.
Prior to joining the company, Terrance spent twelve years with Silicon Valley Bank including several increasingly senior positions including cash management advisor, global treasure advisor and Managing Director responsible for the firm’s Global Private Equity Service Group. Philips managed relationships with more than 130 international venture capital firms throughout Asia, Europe, Israel and South America.
In addition, he is an advisor to the board of directors of the China Venture Capital Finance Organization.
Philips holds a bachelor’s degree in international business from Pepperdine University, and a MBA from Pepperdine University’s Graziadio School of Business. Prior to Business School, Terrance was also a mentor for BUILD, a nonprofit organization committed to motivating under-resourced high school students to succeed in school and go to higher education by helping them start and run their own businesses.
Stephen Quinn joined 17Capital in 2019. Previously, Stephen was the Global Head of Financial Sponsors at Lloyds Banking Group, with responsibility for one of the largest fund finance businesses globally supporting UK, European and Global private equity funds.
Stephen also led Lloyds Banking Group’s coverage strategy for private market clients and activities across the bank. In addition to fund finance, Stephen has over 20 years’ industry experience that includes senior leadership roles in leveraged finance, corporate restructuring and asset disposals.
Bruce Railton is General Counsel of SMBC Nikko Capital Markets Limited in London. He is closely involved in the ESG agenda across SMBC including as a member of the diversity and inclusion steering committee for EMEA and as a senior manager responsible for climate change in SMBC Nikko. Bruce has been closely involved in a range of developments in diversity including proudly acting as an ally and executive sponsor of SMBC EMEA’s Black Employees & Allies Network. As a lawyer with over 25 years experience in banking, he has worked across a wide range of financial products including complex financings and derivatives. He is committed to ensuring that diversity is embedded in SMBC’s own culture and across all our client offerings including in our strong commitment to fund finance.
Emma Russell is an experienced loan finance lawyer with extensive knowledge in global fund finance, real estate finance transactions, and structured and speciality finance, as well as more general experience in acquisition, leverage, and general corporate finance.
Her practice focuses on the full range of fund lending products across all fund sectors, (including private equity, real estate, secondaries, infrastructure, and hedge) from capital call facilities, hybrid/NAV facilities, to general partner support, co-invest facilities and portfolio acquisition facilities and assisting funds with structuring. Emma has significant experience advising credit funds and their lenders in relation to leverage facilities to CLO’s/CDO’s and securitisation vehicles.
Emma’s experience also includes advising both lenders and funds on private equity, receivables financing, asset based lending, speciality finance, real estate fund structuring, and acting for both lenders and sponsors in relation to investment and development real estate finance and leverage restructurings.
Emma has spent significant time working in-house with various financial institutions during her career. She has gained varied experiences with both business and legal teams across all lending sectors.
Craig Rydqvist is a Senior Managing Director on Värde’s Financial Services team responsible for investments in Europe and Asia Pacific. Based in London, he joined the firm in 2014.
Craig established the Capital Markets function for Värde and served as Global Head of Capital Markets before transitioning to the Financial Services team. Prior to joining Värde, Craig ran Structured Finance Origination and Structuring for the U.K. at the Royal Bank of Scotland where he established the bank and capital markets financing for SAV Credit/NewDay, a Värde investment. Prior to RBS, Craig worked in the Emerging Markets business of Barclays Capital and he began his career training as a Chartered Accountant in the Financial Sector practice at KPMG in London.
Craig graduated from the Masters in Finance Programme (MSc) at London Business School. He also holds a First Class undergraduate degree in Business and Management Studies (BSc) from the University of Bradford. Craig is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
Dee Dee Sklar is a Board and Advisor Candidate. As a senior banking executive with global experience in banking and alternatives, she has managed global businesses providing financing and other solutions to private equity firms, portfolio companies, and asset managers across three international banks. Dee Dee retired from her role as Vice Chair, Subscription Finance at Wells Fargo. She is the current Global Co-Chair of Women In Fund Finance and is a part of the Fund Finance Association’s business development initiatives. She is a member of the Cerberus Operating and Advisory Company Competitiveness Council , 17Capital’s Strategic Advisory Board and Tealbook’s AI Supply Chain Technology’s Business Advisory Board.
Robin is a partner in the banking and finance team of the Jersey office of Carey Olsen. He acts for both lenders and borrowers on complex financings, refinancings and restructurings and has significant experience in relation to all types of financing of investment funds. He is consistently recognised in legal directories both as an individual and as part of the team which he leads. Robin trained as an English solicitor in London. Following his move to Jersey in 2002, he spent six years at another leading law firm in Jersey, prior to joining Carey Olsen in February 2008. Robin is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales, a Jersey Advocate and was educated at King’s College, London.
Prof Ligang Song is Chief Economist of Bank of China (Australia) and Head of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. His research interests include international economics, institutional economics, development economics and policy studies, and the Chinese economy. Professor Song has been involved in organising the annual China Update conferences at ANU since 1998 and co-editing the China Update book series with ANU Press since 2002 and jointly with Social Sciences Academy Press of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences since 2007.
Richard is a partner in the real Restate investing business of the Merchant Banking Division (MBD). He is a member of the MBD Real Estate Investment Committee and a managing director ally of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Network. Previously, Richard was co-head of the European Real Estate Financing Group. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2009. Richard was named managing director in 2012 and partner in 2018.
Prior to joining the firm, Richard worked in the Real Estate Principal Transactions Group at Morgan Stanley.
Richard earned a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Warwick in 1996.
James Sweeney is the Chief Operating Officer for Tor Investment Management, a Hong Kong and Singapore-based alternative credit firm with over $2 billion in assets under management. He joined Tor in 2012 and has over 25 years of experience in finance and investment management. Prior to Tor, James was the CEO of Boyer Allan Investment Management, a Hong Kong-based investment management firm and Chief Operating Officer at Artradis Fund Management in Singapore. Before Artradis, he was a Managing Director at Credit Suisse, where he ran the Fund Linked Products Group in New York. Jim began his career as a lawyer at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York. James holds an LLM in taxation from New York University and a JD and BA in Philosophy from Fordham University, New York.
Niamh heads the Funds Finance team for Asia at ANZ in Hong Kong. The team provides private capital firms in Asia with subscription facilities, hedging support and cash management solutions, along with financing for real estate assets in target locations.
Niamh has 19 years of banking experience. Prior to joining ANZ, Niamh managed the Global Markets FIG risk team for Standard Bank London. Prior to that, Niamh worked at ABN Amro, JP Morgan and Barclays Capital across various risk management functions.
Matt is responsible for the origination and asset management of alternative debt investments for Legal & General Investment Management (LGIM). Alternative Debt incorporates structured finance, derivatives and other complex form of debt, together with asset backed financing. This incorporates capital call facilities and other forms of fund financing.
LGIM is the UK’s largest asset manager, with over $1.5 trillion assets under management, and part of the wider Legal & General Group.
Matt joined LGIM three years ago following over 15 years’ experience in structured and infrastructure finance at HSBC
Mary Touchstone is a Partner and Head of the Fund Finance Practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. Mary has helped to establish Simpson Thacher as a global leader in the representation of financial sponsors in fund financings. She is widely acknowledged as a leading lawyer in the subscription credit facility market and represents many of the world’s preeminent sponsors of private equity, real estate, energy, infrastructure, debt and other investment funds on the largest and most complex fund facilities.
Mary and her team regularly work on a wide variety of fund level financings, including secured and unsecured subscription (or capital call) facilities, with borrowing capacity for the fund as well as its parallel funds, alternative investment vehicles and portfolio companies; fund guarantees and other credit support of portfolio level financings; NAV-based facilities and hybrid variations provided as aftercare facilities for funds that are later in their life cycles with less uncalled capital and more portfolio asset value; credit facilities for managed account vehicles; employee co-investment loan programs; management lines to investment advisers for working capital purposes; and liquidity financings for registered funds.
Emma’s entire banking career is in fund finance. With 15 years in banking private equity firms in both US and Asia, Emma leads East West Bank’s fund finance practice in Asia. Her team specializes in providing customized and creative transactions to PE/VC firms. Before joining East West nine years ago, Emma was responsible for developing client relationships in the US at Comerica Bank for six years. Previously, she worked at MUFG’s New York office. Emma holds a Master’s in Finance from Brandeis International Business School, and a BA from Osaka Prefecture University. Emma is trilingual, speaking Chinese, Japanese and English.
Helge Weiner-Trapness is a Founding Partner of Quintus Partners and is based in its New York office. Prior to Quintus Partners, he spent 14 years in Hong Kong where he was most recently
Managing Director and Co-Global Head of the Financial Institutions Group at Barclays.
Prior to Barclays, Mr Weiner-Trapness spent two years as a Group Managing Director and COO of Asia Pacific Land, an Asia based and focused real estate private equity firm. Between 2002 and 2008, he was a Managing Director with JP Morgan Securities. While at JP Morgan, he served as Chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Ltd. from 2005 until 2008. He started his career in banking with Goldman, Sachs & Co. as an analyst in New York in 1987. He spent most of the next 13 years with Goldman Sachs in New York where he was made Managing Director in 1999 and moved to Goldman’s Hong Kong office in 2000.
Mr Weiner-Trapness holds a BA in Economics from Williams College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Since 2007, Richard has been advising fund sponsors and lenders, in both an advisory and principal capacity. In addition to co-founding FFP, Richard was the General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and a Director of a $3 billion asset manager investing debt and equity in lower middle-market companies. During his ten-year tenure, Richard executed numerous capital markets initiatives on behalf of the firm’s investment vehicles and oversaw fund formation activity, developing comingled funds, SMA concepts, a NASDAQ listed BDC, and joint ventures. Richard also executed financings for the foregoing, including but not limited to subscription facilities, corporate and SPV revolvers, total return swaps, hybrid and NAV credit facilities, GP/asset manager lines of credit and securitizations of credit assets.
Richard’s breadth of asset management experience presents valuable, innovative expertise to fund sponsors dealing with fundraising, investor relations, compliance, financing, and portfolio management challenges and opportunities.
Richard began his career as an attorney with two large law firms, representing Fortune 500 companies, privately held entities and alternative asset managers with M&A and capital markets activities, and financial institutions in the execution of leveraged finance and securitization transactions.
Henry Wong is a Vice President and lending advisor of J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Asia. Based in Hong Kong, he is responsible for delivering credit solutions to ultra-high-net-worth clients and private equity funds in Asia.
Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, he worked at Citi for nine years with his last role as an investment finance transactor at Citi Private Bank, focusing on structuring subscription credit facilities for private equity funds.
Stuart is head of Client Franchise for Asia Pacific and leads capital raising activities in the region within the Strategic Capital Group of the Merchant Banking Division. Previously, he was head of the Securities Division for the Middle East and North Africa, where he provided Securities Division coverage to Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds since his relocation to Dubai in 2006. Stuart also served on the Board of Directors of Goldman Sachs Saudi Arabia. Prior to that, he spent five years as an equity salesperson in London.
Stuart joined Goldman Sachs in 2001 as an analyst and was named managing director in 2010.
Stuart earned a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Trinity College, Oxford University, in 2001.
Thea Diaz joined Preqin in 2016 and manages the Fund of Funds and Secondaries team within the company’s research and data operations. Thea directs the company’s intelligence on the fund of funds and secondary market in the EMEA region, involving active communications with key professionals to obtain proprietary information on fundraising, fund performance, investment plans and secondary transactions. During Thea’s time at Preqin, she has also become the ESG Subject Matter Expert in EMEA and helped established its ESG fund manager data collection process.
Thea holds a first-class honours degree in Biochemistry from the University of Lincoln.
Shankul Mittal is Director, Head of Asia Pacific Subscription Finance at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Based out of Hong Kong, Shankul’s role is predominantly to originate, structure and execution of subscription credit facilities with Private Equity Sponsor clients across Asia Pacific. He also focusses on collaboration and cross-sell opportunities with clients to align to the bank’s full product service and provide holistic client solutions.
Prior to being based out of Hong Kong, Shankul’s coverage of PE clients was focused in North America in SMBC New York. He started his career at ANZ within the Financial Institutions Group, spanning 3 regions (Australia, Hong Kong, and New York) across various roles focused on credit and client coverage within the Fund Finance industry. Shankul holds a M.B.A. from Columbia University.
Since founding Brickfield, Rory has played a key role in facilitating some of the most high profile moves within the fund finance industry. He has also undertaken industry consultations for banks and law firms facing challenges in attracting high quality candidates within this competitive market, advising on fund finance industry specifics and key guidance on issues such as base salary expectations, bonus benchmarking and brand reputation.
Freddie is a Managing Director in the European Principal Group at Oaktree Capital Management. Prior to joining Oaktree in 2013, Mr. Powles was a lawyer in private practice in the London restructuring team of Kirkland & Ellis International LLP prior to which he spent three years with Clifford Chance LLP, also within their restructuring group. Mr. Powles holds a B.A. (hons) and M.A. in experimental psychology from University College, Oxford and postgraduate diplomas in law and legal practice from BPP Law School.
National Australia Bank (NAB) is a leading Australian bank. Our global Corporate and Institutional Bank serves international Financial Institutions and Global Corporates through our offices in US, UK, Asia and Australasia – with a focus on our “Bank for Investor, Bank for Infrastructure” strategy.
We have a dedicated Fund Finance team of specialists – operating globally through our offices in Sydney, Melbourne, London, New York and Hong Kong – which provides banking and markets solutions for asset managers and financial sponsors. We are an agent for subscription financing and credit facilities for private and publicly listed funds.
In 2020 we have led financings for some of the world’s leading sponsors and asset management firms and continue to be committed to deepening relationships with key clients in the sector.
Myriam Vander Elst joined Epic, a global nonprofit startup which fights to change the lives of disadvantaged youth, in 2015 as Managing Director for Europe. Myriam leverages impact and giving solutions for individuals and corporations to support high-impact social organizations. A graduate from LSE and Sciences Po Paris, Myriam spent 15 years in the private sector as a communication & brand strategist for world-leading agencies such as BMP-DDB and Dentsu.
Jonathan Peiper is Managing Director and head of the subscription finance business at Mizuho Americas. In this role he is responsible for originating, structuring, arranging, and executing subscription credit facilities and other fund financings for the firm.
Mr. Peiper has over 20 years of experience in subscription finance and was previously Managing Director & Group Head in Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation’s (SMBC) Subscription Secured Finance Department.
He joined SMBC in 1997 as a member of the Public Finance Department where he focused on providing letters of credit, loans, and bond purchases for municipalities, hospitals, not-for-profits, and public and private partnerships.
Mr. Peiper holds a BA in International Relations from Tulane University and an MBA in Corporate Finance from the New York University Stern School of Business.
Francesca Paveri is a Managing Director in Evercore’s Private Capital Advisory Group. Prior to joining Evercore in 2013, Francesca spent seven years in the Private Funds Group at UBS. Francesca has extensive experience advising GPs on some of the largest GP-led secondary deals completed in Europe and continues to work closely with financial sponsors on strategic capital markets transactions. Francesca also has extensive coverage of institutional investors across Europe and works closely with LPs on strategic sales. Francesca graduated with a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Finance from Bocconi University in Milan. Francesca is fluent in English and Italian and has a good knowledge of French and Spanish.
Ana Navarro is a well-known Republican strategist, political analyst for CNN, CNN en Español, and Telemundo, and co-host of ABC’s The View. She is also a political contributor on ABC’s The View where she co-hosts one day a week. The Miami New Times named her a “Republican power-consultant,” and the Tampa Bay Times called her “a sought-after voice in Republican politics and an adviser for any presidential hopeful,” saying, “with confidants Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio she is poised to play a big role in the GOP response to immigration reform and Hispanic outreach.” Respected on both sides of the aisle for her straight shooting and candor, Navarro frequently appears in the media, sought after by Meet the Press, Bill Maher’s Real Time, Anderson Cooper 360, and The View, to name a few. “Ana speaks the truth, and she is willing to speak the truth to power without reservation…She has the ear of lots of elected officials,” said Republican consultant Brett O’Donnell. She is in touch with the political issues people are talking about, and in presentations, she discusses the latest hot button issues in politics, giving audiences an insider’s view of the upcoming elections and a roadmap for where the country is headed.
Political Expertise. Navarro most recently served as the national Hispanic co-chair for Governor Jon Huntsman’s 2012 campaign and the national co-chair of John McCain’s Hispanic Advisory Council in 2008, where she was also the national surrogate for the McCain 2008 campaign. She has played a role in several federal and state races in Florida. She served on Governor Jeb Bush’s transition team in 1998 and was his first director of immigration policy in the Executive Office of the Governor.
In 2001, she served as ambassador to the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission, devoting much of her energy to condemning human rights abuses in Cuba. In 1999, she worked in the private sector, representing private and public clients on federal issues, particularly related to immigration, trade, and policy affecting Central America. In 1997, she was a special advisor to the government of Nicaragua and was one of the primary advocates for NACARA (Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act).
Education and Immigration. Navarro is a graduate of the University of Miami. In 1993, she obtained her BA in Latin American studies and political science. She obtained a Juris Doctorate in 1997. She was born in Nicaragua, and in 1980, as a result of the Sandinista revolution, she and her family immigrated to the United States.
Matthew is Head of Reporting and Business Strategy at Park Square Capital, a leading private debt manager with over $10bn AUM, providing senior debt, subordinated debt and mid-market direct loans to companies in Europe and the US. Prior to joining Park Square, Matthew spent two year as Finance Business Partner at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation providing financial and technical advice on investments and strategy to the Executive team and Board, and five years at PwC. Matthew graduated with a BSc Hons in Geography from Loughborough University and is a Chartered Accountant.
Matt is Co-Head of Pantheon’s Global Secondaries Team and leads Pantheon’s secondaries presence in Europe. He is a member of the Global Secondary Investment Committee and the International Investment Committee. Matt focuses on secondary deal origination, analysis, structuring, execution and management of investments. He also participates in fund monitoring, firm marketing and client reporting. Prior to Pantheon, Matt was an Assistant Economist at HM Treasury within the Finance, Regulation and Industry department. Matt also worked on private equity policy areas as part of the Myners Review team. He has a BA in economics and politics from Leeds University. Matt is based in London.
Andrew specialises in a wide range of bank lending, including fund financing (for both fund borrowers and lenders), acquisition finance, syndicated lending, restructurings, and structured finance. Andrew has been in our London office (13 years), Hong Kong office (10 years) and is currently in our Singapore office (since May 2016).
Mr. Early is a Partner and European CFO in the Ares Finance Department. Prior to joining Ares in 2012, Mr. Early was a Senior Vice President in Finance at Nielsen Holdings. Previously, Mr. Early held a variety of tax and finance leadership roles at GE Capital Corporation. Mr. Early holds a B.S., magna cum laude, from Marquette University in Accounting.
Thomas Doyle Partner, Investment Committee member, joined 17Capital in 2018. Prior to joining 17Capital, Thomas spent six years at JP Morgan where he was Managing Director and led the creation of the private equity fund financing business as Head of Fund Linked Financing, EMEA. Thomas has over 25 years’ banking and insurance experience having previously worked at organisations such as Credit Suisse, KBC Financial Products and Zurich Capital Markets. Thomas is a CFA charter holder from the CFA Institute and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University College, Dublin.
Fi is a Director of Fund Finance and Insurance Sector Finance (ISF), Asia-Pacific at ING, based in Singapore. Fi joined ING in 2018 to lead the expansion of the ING’s fund financing business into the Asia Pacific region.
Fi is co-chair of the Women in Fund Finance, APAC (“WFF”), created to focused on the increased engagement, recognition and promotion of women leaders within the alternative investment fund finance. She also currently sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s Greening of the Fund Management industry working group.
Before ING, Fi spent nearly a decade at Barclays in London and Dubai, where she was Director, Financial Institutions Group and helped build a successful Private Equity coverage franchise supporting financial sponsors and alternative asset managers in EMEA and the US. Her earlier banking career spans across credit analysis, operational risk and project management.
Prior to banking, Fi worked on a number of governments’ nation branding projects, including media relations, promote foreign direct investment and crisis management. Fi holds a BA (Hons) in Public Relations from University of the Arts London, a Fine Arts diploma from Central Saint Martin College of Arts and a Professional Diploma in Banking Practice & Management from the London Institute of Banking & Finance.
Fi is bilingual in English and Vietnamese, and intermediate Spanish. Outside of work, she is an enthusiastic Bachata and Tango dancer, with a recent interest in practicing Parkour.
Fiona is a Partner at Allen & Overy based in Hong Kong. She advises funds (including private equity, private credit, distressed credit, real estate and multi-strategy funds) and financial institutions on a range of domestic and international banking and finance transactions with a particular focus on fund level financing (including subscription line facilities, hybrid facilities and GP facilities), leveraged and event-driven acquisition financings and equity finance.
Fiona also advises distressed credit funds, banks, bondholders, insolvency practitioners and other key stakeholders on both contentious and non-contentious financial restructurings and has extensive experience advising on enforcements in the context of onshore and offshore financings for PRC assets.
Sir Ronald Cohen is a preeminent international investor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, social finance innovator, and impact pioneer, who is driving forward the global Impact Revolution.
He is the author of ‘IMPACT: Reshaping capitalism to drive real change’ – a Sunday Times Bestseller. His previous book ‘The Second Bounce of the Ball’ was described by the Financial Times as “One of the best books written on entrepreneurship in recent years.”
He serves as Chairman of the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment and The Portland Trust. He is a co-founder of Social Finance UK, USA and Israel; and co-founder Chair of Bridges Fund Management and Big Society Capital. He chaired the G8 Social Impact Investment Taskforce (2013-15), the UK Social Investment Task Force (2000-10) and the UK’s Commission on Unclaimed Assets (2005-2007). In 2012 he received the Rockefeller Foundation’s Innovation Award for Social Finance.
He was the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Apax Partners Worldwide LLP (1972-2005), a global venture capital and private equity firm, and co-founder of the British and European venture capital associations.
Oxford and Harvard educated, Sir Ronald was born in Egypt and left as a refugee at the age of 11, when his family came to the UK. He is based in Tel Aviv, London and New York.
Follow on twitter @SirRonnieCohen.
Greg Ciesielski joined HarbourVest in 2007 and has worked on the European, US, and Asia investment teams. Greg focuses on global secondary investments purchased through both traditional and more complex transactions. He has played a lead role in several complex transactions, including the acquisition of SVG Capital’s investment portfolio and General Partner-led liquidity transactions involving Motion Equity Partners, Portobello Capital, Investcorp Technology Partners, Preservation Capital Partners and Mandarin Capital. Greg also leads ESG integration in the firm’s secondary investment activity globally.
Prior to HarbourVest, Greg worked at Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. as an investment banking analyst in the Global Healthcare Group in New York.
Greg received a BS in Business with a concentration in Finance from Indiana University in 2005 and an MBA from Columbia Business School in 2013.
Paul Begala is a political commentator, a professor of public policy, an author, and political strategist. He is a commentator for CNN, where he is part of the political team that has won both an Emmy Award and a Peabody Award. In addition to appearing on-air, Paul writes commentary for CNN, and, with over 200,000 Twitter followers, he has a robust social media presence as well. Paul is the author of six books about politics, several of which were New York Times bestsellers. In the 1990’s Paul helped his friend John F. Kennedy, Jr. launch the political magazine George and wrote the “Capitol Hillbilly” column. Paul has taught at three universities: The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught in the School of Journalism; the University of Georgia, where he taught in the School of Law; and Georgetown University, where he has been an Affiliated Professor of Public Policy in the McCourt School of Public Policy for 19 years. Begala burst on the political scene in 1992 as a senior strategist for Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. He served as Counselor to the President in the White House, helping coordinate policy, politics, and media. Before working for Pres. Clinton, Paul worked on Capitol Hill and advised campaigns across America. In 2012 he played a crucial role in the Obama-Biden re-election campaign. Paul has also done campaign work overseas, including in Israel, Europe, South America, the Caribbean, and Africa. Former President Bill Clinton described his longtime friend and former aide as, “a witty dynamo from Sugar Land, Texas…who brought energy, focus and credibility to our efforts.”
Susannah Amini is a banking partner in the London office of Kirkland & Ellis International LLP. Susannah has broad debt finance experience including leveraged buyouts, IPO/investment grade borrowing and general cross border financings. She has specialist fund finance experience, acting for many different sponsors in their capital call / subscription facilities, NAV facilities, GP co-invest facilities, leverage for secondary transactions and other more bespoke forms of fund finance.
In 2019, Legal Week named Susannah to its list of “40 under 40: The Rising Stars in Private Equity” which compiles the best up-and-coming private practice lawyers in UK and European private, based on the quality of their client base, complexity of deals, client feedback and market reputation.
Susannah has represented, among others, Advent International, BC Partners, CVC Credit, Ergon Capital, HgCapital, IK Investment Partners, Investindustrial, Lion Capital, L Catterton Asia, Livingbridge, Montagu Private Equity, Nordic Capital and Vitruvian Partners on a variety of different fund financing matters.
Kirkland & Ellis provides exceptional service to clients around the world in complex corporate and tax, litigation, intellectual property, restructuring and counseling matters. The Firm offers clients the unsurpassed resources of a large, integrated, multidisciplinary, global team of more than 2,700 attorneys across 15 offices in New York, Chicago, Boston, Beijing, Dallas, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Palo Alto, Paris, San Francisco, Shanghai and Washington, D.C.
Kirkland is a global leader in providing sophisticated advice to investment fund sponsors, institutional investors and other market participants in the alternative investment fund space. Kirkland’s strength lies in our unique ability to bring together best-in-class lawyers in all major markets across an extensive, cross-border private equity platform in the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific. With more than 440 dedicated Investment Funds attorneys, no other law firm matches the breadth, depth and scope of Kirkland’s experience in investment funds legal services. In addition to offering one of the largest and most active investment funds practices in the world, Kirkland’s platform also includes a dedicated fund finance bench that brings in-depth practical market knowledge to a wide range of financing structures. Since 2017, Kirkland has executed more than 300 fund financing transactions for over 250 clients, including more than 50 NAV facilities, representing approximately $40 billion in aggregate transaction value.
State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) is one of the world’s leading providers of financial services to institutional investors including investment servicing, investment management and investment research and trading. With $32.90 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $2.95 trillion* in assets under management as of September 30, 2019, State Street operates globally in more than 100 geographic markets and employs approximately 40,000 worldwide. For more information, visit State Street’s website at www.statestreet.com.
*Assets under management include the assets of the SPDR® Gold ETF and the SPDR® Long Dollar Gold Trust ETF (approximately $44 billion as of September 30, 2019), for which State Street Global Advisors Funds Distributors, LLC (SSGA FD) serves as marketing agent; SSGA FD and State Street Global Advisors are affiliated.
Established in 1825 in Dublin, Ireland and with offices in Cork, London, New York, Palo Alto and San Francisco, more than 670 people work across Matheson’s six offices, including 95 partners and tax principals and over 440 legal and tax professionals. Matheson services the legal needs of internationally focused companies and financial institutions doing business in and from Ireland. Our clients include over half of the world’s 50 largest banks, 6 of the world’s 10 largest asset managers, 7 of the top 10 global technology brands and we have advised the majority of the Fortune 100.
Our Finance and Capital Markets team advises financial institutions and corporations involved in arranging and executing all forms of finance and capital markets transactions in Ireland.
Conyers is a leading international law firm with a broad client base including FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, international finance houses and asset managers. The Firm advises on Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands law, from offices in those jurisdictions and in the key financial centres of Hong Kong, London and Singapore.
Conyers has a wealth of experience in the fund finance space and takes an integrated approach to fund finance with our team comprised of both fund finance and fund formation lawyers working seamlessly together. This allows us to efficiently handle challenging transactions and minimise unnecessary conflict with borrower counsel to ensure a seamless client experience.
We are ideally placed to advise you from an offshore perspective on all aspects of the fund finance market and to assist you in tailoring and effecting bespoke fund finance solutions.
For more information, click here: https://www.conyers.com/legal-services/finance/fund-finance/
The Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group is one of Japan’s largest asset managers and custodian in addition to industry leader in trust-bank-related businesses. We continue to build on our global business model to create unique value-added services associated with the brand of “SuMi TRUST”, with a firm presence not only in the Japanese trust banking industry, but also in the global financial industry.
As one of the largest institutional investors and trust banks in Japan, SuMi TRUST offers a unique approach to alternative investment asset class and leverages its fiduciary spirit and knowledge to be our clients’ “Best Partner”.
SuMi TRUST is one of the largest asset managers in Japan, with AUM of USD 845 billion (as of March 31, 2019). SuMi TRUST manages a broad spectrum of financial products and is well known in Japan for specialized solutions for corporate and public pension funds.
Connecting local and international perspectives to power new opportunities.
As one of Australia’s most recognised brands, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is a leading provider of personal banking, business and institutional banking and share broking services in Australia. CBA has a strong balance sheet, with total assets exceeding $A976 billion (as at 30 June 2019). By market capitalisation CBA is among the world’s 15 largest banks (as at August 2019).
Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, and with offices in Europe, the US and Asia Pacific, CBA is strategically positioned to work with clients across global markets, while connecting non-Australian clients to opportunities both in Australia and around the world. As custodian of Australia’s largest customer transactional data set, CBA can connect global clients to Australian opportunities backed by data-generated insights. Our scale enables us to unlock alternative pools of liquidity and capital, with strong executional capabilities complemented by a network of corporate referrals and diverse international expertise.
The Institutional Banking & Markets division offers a full range of capital raising solutions and financial markets capabilities, as well as transactional and risk management products and services.
Walkers is a leading international law firm providing legal, corporate and fiduciary services to financial institutions, investment fund managers, capital markets participants and global corporations.
Walkers was among the first offshore firms to work on equity fund subscription credit transactions and hedge fund financing platforms, for both lender and borrower clients, providing expertise which is unmatched by our competitors. Such global strength and presence has enabled us to spearhead our clients’ continuing expansion into the Asian and European markets. We have been at the forefront of the development of the fund finance market in those regions, working closely with leading financial institutions, investment managers and law firms.
The fund finance team works closely with the Walkers’ top-tier fund formation practice providing for an in-depth understanding of the structures used by investment managers and the legal and commercial issues relevant to fund finance providers. Our clients include agents, banks, alternative lenders and investment fund managers including private equity, credit, real estate and hedge funds.
Our global teams have acted on complex and innovative fund financing solutions including equity bridge facilities, subscription and acquisition financings, capital call facilities as well as traditional products such as repo financing, synthetic borrowings and more esoteric products including NAV based margin loans and fund linked derivative solutions.
“Truly excellent”, “responsive and efficient“, “in a nutshell they get the job done” – that’s what the leading directories have to say about Ogier’s top ranked cross-jurisdictional finance team. With offices in BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Jersey and Luxembourg, Ogier’s team has years of specialist expertise in fund finance, and we work with 21 of the 25 biggest global law firms.
We have a long track record in all aspects of fund financing including structuring, security requirements, quasi-equity and mezzanine financing – and it’s not for nothing that our finance teams in Guernsey and Jersey are rated in the top tier by both Chambers and The Legal 500.
Above all, our approach is both commercial and long-term. Our relationships in this specialist field have been built over many years of providing a responsive and expert service across the leading offshore jurisdictions, getting straight to the point and managing complexity for our clients.
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial financial services through more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATMs, online (wellsfargo.com), and mobile devices. We’re headquartered in San Francisco, but we’re decentralized so every local Wells Fargo location is a headquarters for satisfying our customers’ financial needs and helping them succeed financially. We do business with 70 million customers and one in three U.S. households. Wells Fargo has approximately 273,000 team members in 42 countries and territories across our more than 90 businesses. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) is one of the world’s leading financial groups, has total assets of $326.5 billion at September 30, 2018. Headquartered in Tokyo and with over 360 years of history, MUFG has a global network with over 1,800 locations in more than 50 countries. The Group has over 150,000 employees and offers services including commercial banking, trust banking, securities, credit cards, consumer finance, asset management, and leasing.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP (www.simpsonthacher.com) is one of the world’s leading international law firms. The Firm was established in 1884 and today has more than 900 lawyers. Building on over 130 years of experience, the Firm has played a substantial role in many of the most complex and noteworthy transactions and matters of the last decades. Headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, São Paulo, Tokyo and Washington, D.C., the Firm provides coordinated legal advice and transactional capability to clients around the globe.
The Firm offers a market-leading fund finance practice with deep experience providing fund- and asset-level leverage solutions for private equity, real estate, investment, special situations and infrastructure funds. Complementing the Firm’s preeminent private funds practice, our fund finance team represents clients across a broad spectrum of transactions encompassing all aspects of the investment management business.
Clifford Chance is one of the world’s pre-eminent law firms, with the depth and range of resources to help our clients across all the major global financial centres. As a single, fully integrated partnership, we pride ourselves on our ability to work seamlessly across national borders to deliver broad industry expertise and local knowledge.
Clifford Chance brings a market-leading fund finance proposition, advising lenders and funds on a wide range of financing options, including capital call bridge financing, leveraged NAV facilities and borrowing base deals (including hybrid facilities), along with facilities for general partners. Our global funds/funds formation practice of over 130 lawyers works in tandem with our lending team to provide a complete fund financing platform for our clients.
Citi Private Bank is one of the longest-established providers of strategic advice, global access and liquidity for private equity principals and their funds. The subscription credit finance practice is a core product offering of Citi’s Private Bank. As part of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group, we use our extensive global network to provide an institutional service. Globally, Citi Private Bank has over 50 specialists focused on marketing, origination, execution, risk management and day-to-day portfolio management of the subscription credit finance business (of which more than 10 cover Europe). Since 1999 Citi Private Bank has executed over 500 transactions in over 18 countries across the globe.
As a leading global bank, Citi does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions, providing consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial services and products. We strive to create the best outcomes for our clients and customers with financial ingenuity that leads to solutions that are simple, creative and responsible.
Barclays’ dedicated Corporate Banking Funds Team operates globally and provides an extensive range of fund banking solutions, including subscription line and hybrid debt facilities, cash management, trade finance and foreign exchange.
Relationship Directors based in the UK, US and Asia provide creative solutions and excellent service to our Fund clients and work closely with our Investment Banking, Markets, Offshore Banking and Wealth teams to ensure a comprehensive offering. With sector specific knowledge, international expertise and innovative, digital capabilities, our relationship approach is perfectly placed to connect our clients to a world of possibility.
As China’s most globalised bank, and one of the world’s largest financial institutions, Bank of China (“BOC”) has over 305,000 employees in 61 countries and regions, with total assets of $3.4 trillion.
BOC has established an integrated service platform based on the pillars of its corporate banking, personal banking, financial markets and other commercial banking business, which covers investment banking, direct investment, securities, insurance, funds and aircraft leasing. In addition, BOCHK and the Macau Branch serve as local note-issuing banks in their respective markets.
The primary centres of fund financing in Asia are Sydney, Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong who work closely together to provide Subscription and NAV based fund facilities to leading global and regional funds. BOC also provides fund financing in New York and London.
Harry Elliott sits within the Optimisation and Investor Solutions team at MV Credit. The team covers all investor activity and business development, as well as proactively managing the funds strategy with a view to enhancing risk adjusted returns through active debt management. Prior to joining MV Credit, Harry worked in derivative structuring and trading at River and Mercantile Derivates, and before that worked at RBC Capital Markets in Leveraged Finance. Harry holds a Master of Arts degree in Natural Sciences (Physics) from the University of Cambridge and has completed the CFA.
Jean is a partner in the international finance department in the Singapore office, specialising in international banking and finance transactions. Jean has nearly 15 years of experience in the financing space and covers a wide range of bank lending areas, including syndicated lending, cross border leveraged transactions, acquisition finance, funds financing, structured lending and financing the acquisition of non-performing loan portfolios. Jean has a broad exposure to a number of jurisdictions in Asia with a particular focus on jurisdictions in South and Southeast Asia.
Simon Thwaites is a Managing Director in the Funds and Equity Solutions team within the Equities division at Barclays. Based in London, he is responsible for originating and structuring leverage and financing deals in both loan and derivative format. Typical borrowers are owners or managers of either Hedge Funds or Private Equity funds. He has executed a number of term loans and liquidity facilities collateralized by PE NAVs for primary and secondary sponsor clients.
Simon joined Barclays in November 2018 from TP ICAP where he was Head of Debt Solutions, responsible for Fund Finance intermediation. Prior to this, Simon spent over 15 years at Credit Suisse in the Fund Linked Products team where he was instrumental in building their Fund-Linked Financing franchise. Before joining Credit Suisse, Simon was a manager in the Business Recovery Unit at BDO UK responsible for pre-lending and solvency reviews as well as formal insolvency processes.
Simon is a Chartered Certified Accountant and holds an MA in Mathematics from the University of Oxford.
Matt Taber is a partner in our Cayman office and is a well-known specialist in Cayman Islands investment funds, fund finance, regulation and cryptoassets. He has advised many of the world’s leading asset managers in 15 years of practice in the Cayman Islands. In addition, Matt is a specialist in acting for banks that operate in the fund or subscription finance space. Prior to joining Harneys, Matt worked for other leading firms in the Cayman Islands. Before coming to the Cayman Islands, he was a corporate and M&A lawyer in London for seven years. Matt is a member of the board of the Cayman Islands chapter of AIMA and he regularly participates in Government and legislative and regulatory industry working groups.
Leon is co-head of the Reed Smith fund finance team, based in London. Leon and the team work with banks, other financial institutional lenders, managers, general partners and limited partners of funds on specialist fund financing transactions with private equity, secondaries, real estate, direct lending and infrastructure funds.
Leon has particular specialist knowledge of NAV/asset-backed and hybrid facilities, secondary funds facilities, capital call facilities, co-investment and GP/manager support facilities and other types of liquidity facilities provided to funds.
Leon is recognised as a Leading Individual in Fund Finance by Legal 500 2020 and the team was awarded Band 1 in Fund Finance by Legal 500 2020. Leon was recognised as “Partner of the Year for Banking” at the Client Choice Awards 2017. Leon represents a large proportion of lenders that provide fund financing as well as a number of private equity and other funds on complex fund finance transactions.
Mr. Mizuno is a Japanese financial executive and former Executive Management Director and CIO of GPIF (Government Pension Investment Fund of Japan with AUM $1.5 trillion) between Jan 2015 and March 2020.
Prior to joining GPIF, he was a partner of Coller Capital, a London-based private equity firm (Jan 2003 – Jan 2005).
He previously worked for Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co., Ltd. in Japan, Silicon Valley and New York (April 1988 – Jan 2003).
Mizuno works in the following capacities to promote long term and ESG investment
Mizuno advises Japanese governments in the following capacities.
Mizuno’s involvement with academics included:
Tom is a Managing Director at the Bank of China, heading up their global fund finance business. With more than 20 years’ banking experience, Tom’s background includes delivery of subscription and asset-based financing, transactional banking, risk management and global markets products. Tom has built a market-wide reputation for his strengths in relationship management and deal execution with the world’s largest financial Institutions.
Mr. Kandel joined Cerberus in 2007 and oversees compliance for Cerberus and its global operations. Mr. Kandel is a member of numerous Committees and is the Chairman of the Firm’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Committee.
As Global Chief Compliance Officer, Mr. Kandel works with the Firm’s business units worldwide to ensure Cerberus is maintaining the highest standard of compliance and ethical behavior. He has been instrumental in integrating best practices into the Firm’s day-to-day operations, including through the development of a robust compliance program that, among other things, regularly monitors activities and conducts trainings to ensure the safeguarding of the Firm’s integrity and reputation.
Prior to joining Cerberus, Mr. Kandel was First VP and Assistant General Counsel at Merrill Lynch, where he was in charge of state regulation, legislation, and government relations. From 1995 to 1998, Mr. Kandel was the Chief of the Investor Protection & Securities Bureau at the New York State Attorney General’s Office, where he also assisted in oversight of the Antitrust, Charities, Consumer Fraud, Civil Rights, Environmental, and Real Estate Finance Bureaus. From 1993 to 1995, he was Senior Special Counsel, then Trial Counsel, at the Enforcement Division of the New York Stock Exchange. He was also an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan for seven years.
Mr. Kandel graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and received his J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Makiko Harunari is the Head of Asia Banking and Credit at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Makiko regularly represents a varied roster of prominent financial sponsors, corporate borrowers and international financial institutions in complex cross-border financing transactions throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Her practice includes a broad mix of acquisition finance, real estate finance, fund finance, mezzanine finance, back-leverage transactions and other innovative financing products.
Previously based in the New York office for a decade, Makiko has long been involved in growing Simpson Thacher’s Banking and Credit practice in Asia including fund finance.
Rich Davis is a Senior Investment Manager at Aberdeen Standard Investments and has been with Hark Capital since its inception. Mr. Davis is responsible for origination, execution and asset management of Hark Capital’s investments.
Prior to joining Enhanced Capital, which incubated Hark Capital prior to selling it to Aberdeen Standard in May 2018, Mr. Davis was a Vice President at GarMark Partners, where he focused on investing a $330 million fund in private debt and equity investments. Previously, Mr. Davis was a Consultant at Wind Point Partners and a Senior Investment Banking Analyst at RBC Capital Markets. Mr. Davis received a B.S. from the University of Illinois and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Mr. Davis holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Tommy Constantinou is Co-Head of Fund Finance at Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Ltd. (SuMi TRUST) within the New York Branch Fund Finance Department. Tommy has led the expansion of the Fund Finance business within SuMi TRUST and is responsible for originating and executing fund finance related credit facilities. Tommy has extensive knowledge in various asset classes including Collateralized Loan Obligations, Subscription Finance, Middle Market Senior Leverage Facilities and Private ABS. Given SuMi TRUST’s unique position as investor, lender and asset manager within alternative investment universe, Mr. Constantinou acts as liaison between Asia and North America by leveraging relationships and knowledge within the SuMi TRUST global network. Prior to joining SuMi TRUST in 2011, Tommy was with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney (formerly Citi Smith Barney) for four years within the Private Wealth Management Division. Mr. Constantinou is a graduate of Iona College and received his MBA from the Binghamton University School of Management.
Kenneth oversees all finance functions and private debt investment of Gaw Capital in Asia and is responsible for private debt origination, acquisition financing, financial due diligence, tax structuring, FX risk and liquidity management. With Gaw Capital since 2013, he is a member of the credit and valuation committees. Before Gaw Capital, he had been working in Temasek’s Investment Team for 6.5 years and was the in-charge of real estate investments in the Greater China Region. Kenneth worked in Deutsche Bank’s M&A Team (Asia Ex-Japan) and PwC’s Assurance Division in Hong Kong in the early days of his career.
Steve joined Intermediate Capital Group plc (“ICG”), a FTSE listed specialist asset manager, in November 2015 as Group Treasurer. He is responsible for all aspects of ICG’s corporate treasury management and assists with ICG’s Debt and Equity Investor Relations with a focus on developing the US investor base. Since joining, Steve has also assumed responsibility for the Financing and Risk Management activity for all ICG’s Investment Strategies, which now number over 20. These include the flagship Europe Fund, Senior Debt, Infrastructure and Strategic Equity Funds, which all require individual financing solutions.
Steve is a qualified Accountant (ACMA) and Treasurer (FCT) who spent most of his career in various senior finance roles at British American Tobacco, predominantly in Group Treasury. These roles included Treasurer, Corporate Finance and Global Head of Commercial Treasury and involved stints overseas in locations such as Hong Kong, Vietnam and Russia.
Lucas Bryant is a Director in Deloitte’s Mergers and Acquisitions Tax practice, currently based in Hong Kong. Lucas specializes in providing US and international tax advice with a focus on Private Equity investment into Asia, structuring alternative asset managers and alternative investment funds.
Lucas has rich international expertise amassed through time in New York, London and Hong Kong and has broad experience providing the full spectrum of M&A and private market fund tax services, including: tax due diligence services on the buy and sell side, design of tax efficient acquisition structures, post-acquisition restructuring, design of management reward schemes, design of alternative investment fund structures, carry and co-investment structures and fund manager structures.
Lucas is a Chartered Accountant and holds a BSc in Management Sciences from the University of Southampton and a Master’s degree in Taxation from New York University School of Law.
Rugile Bianchi is an Associate Director within the Financial Sponsors team, Corporate and Institutional Coverage at Lloyds Bank based in London. Rugile is responsible for managing banking relationships with multiple global Private Market managers (Buy-out, Secondaries, Private Debt, Real Estate and Infrastructure funds). In this role, her focus is on the origination, structuring, execution and management of bilateral and syndicated fund financing solutions (Subscription, NAV, GP Support and Liquidity facilities) and on banking and hedging requirements. Prior to joining the Financial Sponsors team in 2014, Rugile worked as a Manager in the Business Development and Transformation team at Lloyds Bank, structuring, implementing and presenting strategic performance assessments to business leaders. Before joining Lloyds in 2013, Rugile was a Senior Associate in Assurance, Investment Management at PwC London, performing audits of investments, pension and hedge funds. Rugile is CFA and ACA qualified and holds a BSc. (Hons) degree in International Economics and Management from Bocconi University in Italy.
Navdeep is a partner in the Ashurst finance practice. Based in London and having spent time working in the Hong Kong and New York offices, she is particularly alive to the factors that affect international businesses and cross border transactions.
Navdeep is an industry recognised specialist in Fund Finance and one of only a small number of lawyers that have been advising in this area since the emergence of the market. With over a decade of experience acting for lenders and borrowers on all aspects of fund finance including subscription, single-investor, letter of credit, hybrid, GP, co-investment and equity-commitment-backed financings, she has a particular focus on the growing areas of NAV and asset backed facilities.
Navdeep is a key member of the Fund Finance community. In what is a constantly evolving market always looking for the next growth opportunity, she is particularly valued by her clients for the experience she brings in understanding fund structures and helping formulate innovative lending solutions.
As Co-Head of Origination, Francois is responsible for managing the firm’s investment origination activities worldwide. He is based in the firm’s London office.
Prior to joining Coller Capital in 2007, Francois worked in the Investment Banking division of UBS in London. Previously, he worked at Gimar Finance and PAI Partners in Paris, and at Société Générale in New York.
Francois has an MSc in Engineering from École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in France, and an MBA from INSEAD.
East West Bancorp, Inc. is a publicly owned company with total assets of $49.4B, and is traded under the symbol “EWBC”. The Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, East West Bank, is one of the largest independent banks headquartered in California. EWB Private Equity, with offices in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley and Hong Kong, is the Bank’s largest industry specialty group, comprising 24 dedicated professionals with in-depth knowledge of the fund finance market gained from nearly 20 years of experience on average. This reservoir of extensive underwriting expertise allows us to deliver a wide range of innovative credit structures to fulfill the banking needs of private capital firms located in every major center of private capital in the U.S. and Greater China. Our portfolio limit of over $4.5B allows us to bank firms in every asset class, and of every size, managing assets ranging from $50m to over $1T. Please visit us at www.eastwestbank.com/PrivateEquity.
Our market-leading funds team spans time-zones and has an outstanding international reputation in offshore investment funds, working across a wide range of alternative fund asset classes – traditionally real estate, private equity, credit and hedge funds. We advise on the formation, structuring and regulation of investment funds in the Cayman Islands, the BVI, Jersey and Guernsey, and our lawyers provide ongoing legal advice to offshore funds and their managers and investors.
Our ‘one firm’ approach means that working together with clients we deliver seamless, objective and commercially grounded advice on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the leading offshore fund jurisdictions. Our team exercises true commercial judgment in delivering advice often going the extra mile, with a personal approach, and forming genuine partnerships with our clients and their advisers. Clients benefit from our teams working together and making things happen in this way, resulting in deals being delivered on time and within budget.
Visit www.mourant.com to find out more.
Mizuho Americas is a leading financial institution comprising several legal entities, which together offer clients corporate and investment banking, financing, securities, treasury services, asset management, research and more. With professionals in offices throughout the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Chile, Mizuho’s operations in the Americas connect a broad client base of major corporations, financial institutions and public sector groups to local markets and a vast global network. Learn more at mizuhogroup.com.
Mizuho Americas is an integral part of the Japan-based Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (NYSE: MFG). Mizuho Financial Group is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, offering comprehensive financial and strategic services including private banking and venture capital through its subsidiaries. The group has over 900 offices and 60,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and Asia. As of December 31, 2019, its total assets were $1.8 trillion. Learn more about Mizuho Financial Group at www.mizuho-fg.com.
It is not just law at Travers Smith. Travers Smith treats its clients’ business and challenges as its own. The firm’s clients know that wherever in the world they or their ambitions lie, the firm will work as one of their team to get things done. We have been an active participant in the European fund finance space for over 20 years and frequently advise market participants both providing and seeking finance on a wide range of financing structures including subscription facilities, NAV and hybrid facilities, secondaries facilities, GP support / co-invest facilities and management fee facilities.
SMBC is a global leader in subscription-secured lending to private equity funds investing across multiple asset classes. Globally centralized in New York, SMBC has been originating subscription facilities since 1999 and has originated and arranged more than $40 billion in the last five years for funds in the US, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Japan and Australia. SMBC has arranged credit facilities for funds investing in the following asset classes: real estate, private equity, infrastructure, energy and natural resources, middle market lending, BDCs, distressed debt, venture capital, fund-of-funds and secondaries.
SMBC is a member of SMBC Group, a top-tier global financial group. Headquartered in Tokyo and with a 400-year history, the Group has more than 130 offices and 85,000 employees worldwide in nearly 40 countries. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. (SMFG) is the holding company of SMBC Group, which is one of the three largest banking groups in Japan. SMFG’s shares trade on the Tokyo, Nagoya, and New York (NYSE: SMFG) stock exchanges. As of June 30, 2020, its total assets were $2.10 trillion.
Haynes and Boone, LLP is one of the leading U.S. corporate law firms with offices across Texas, in New York, California, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, Washington D.C., London, Mexico City and Shanghai, representing agent banks in Subscription Financings in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. With more than 575 lawyers, Haynes and Boone is ranked among the largest U.S.‐based firms by The National Law Journal. The firm was instrumental in developing the structure and documentation for subscription financing in the early 1990s. With over 30 years of industry experience in the global subscription financing market, our Fund Finance Practice has worked through numerous business cycles, taking a multi‐disciplinary approach to working with clients and their customers on each transaction, preserving the lender‐borrower relationship by conducting all negotiations with an understanding of the fund’s business issues, while preserving each fund’s relationship with its investors. Our work in the global subscription financing market has been recognized by Private Equity International’s Global Annual Awards as one of the top law firms in the “Transactions” category for both Asia and North America. Our global team’s focus is a collaborative team approach with an emphasis on partner‐led deals. Our team advises on all types of fund finance including subscription financing, NAV/Hybrid, GP support and management fee financings.
Jeremy Berchem is the Office Managing Group Partner at Appleby (Guernsey) LLP. Jeremy is a widely renowned banking and finance expert, leading the firm’s debt finance team and is recognised by his peers and clients as a capable and commercially focused leader in the field. He has extensive experience of all areas of banking and finance work including advising both lenders and borrowers in relation to all aspects of subscription, acquisition, property and asset finance transactions.
Legal 500 UK 2021 ranked Jeremy as a Leading Individual. Chambers UK 2020 recognised Jeremy for being a Notable Practitioner. IFLR1000 named Jeremy as Highly Regarded in the 2021 edition.
Vassiliyan ZanevVassiliyan Zanev is a Partner in the finance practice of the Luxembourg Investment Management team of Loyens & Loeff and he leads the global fund finance practice. He represents a variety of financial institutions, investment funds and corporations across a range of structured finance and lending transactions, with particular emphasis on fund finance, securitisation, debt issuances and real estate finance.
Vassiliyan has extensive experience in the financing of Luxembourg alternative or regulated investment fund borrowers (including by way of capital call subscription credit facilities, bridge facilities and permanent leverage solutions).
Paul Tannenbaum is a partner in the Banking & Finance practice of the London office. He has extensive experience acting for lenders, borrowers and financial institutions on both fund financings and acquisition and leveraged finance transactions.
Paul’s fund finance experience includes a wide range of transactions including traditional subscription lines, hybrid (NAV) facilities, GP support facilities, loans to separate accounts and fund of fund financings.
In addition, Paul has worked on a number of mid-market leveraged finance transactions in recent years, acting for UK and international lenders (including credit and debt funds) and sponsors on a variety of UK domestic and cross-border leveraged finance transactions, including private equity-backed leveraged buy-outs, management buy-outs/buy-ins, public bids, corporate M&A and recapitalisations.
Nick joined AIMA in February 2017 and is currently Director, Private Credit. His role focuses on public policy and regulatory issues for the non-bank lending sector on behalf of the Alternative Credit Council. Prior to joining AIMA, Nick worked in advocacy roles for the banking and asset finance sectors concentrating on credit regulation, FATCA, wealth management, corporate governance and professional standards. Nick has a degree in Politics and Modern History from the University of Manchester. Nick is also Chair of the networking group Labour in the City.
Aimee Sharman is a partner in the Banking & Finance practice of the London office. She has a broad client base across multiple fund and asset classes (private equity funds, credit funds, infrastructure funds, secondary funds, real estate funds, emerging market funds, hedge funds and more), acting for both borrowers and lenders on a wide range of financing products across the fund finance sector. Her extensive experience includes advising on bridge financing, GP support or co-investment facilities, fund of funds financing, NAV/asset backed facilities or hybrid facilities and preferred equity solutions.
Ann Richardson Knox is a partner in the Banking & Finance practice at Mayer Brown and is the Global Head of Mayer Brown’s Fund Finance team. Ann has spent over 20 years structuring complex leveraged financings to US and global private funds, sponsors and portfolio companies and has represented both financial institutions and funds. Ann’s vast experience encompasses financings at every level of the capital stack and every phase of a fund’s existence.
Ann represents major domestic and foreign investment and commercial banks as lead agent and arranger in connection with subscription credit facilities. She has been lead counsel on many of the largest and complex subscription credit facilities to funds sponsored by the world’s preeminent fund sponsors. Ann’s practice also includes structuring novel solutions to provide leverage on fund portfolio assets, including private equity limited partnership interests, real estate, debt and portfolio companies. Notably, Ann led the first such portfolio leveraging financings to secondary funds more than a decade ago.
Cliodhna Murphy is an Executive Director for Product Development at MUFG Investor Services with responsibility for hedge fund and fund of hedge funds lines of business. Cliodhna was previously at Man Group where she served under various roles including business manager for GLG Credit, head of investment management services and head of investor services. Prior to Man Group, Cliodhna was the Chief Operating Officer for the start-up asset manager Decura, a VP at Goldman Sachs Administration Services and an Associate at Morgan Stanley Fund Services. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in International Insurance and European Studies from the University of Limerick.
Martinez is a partner in the Finance Section in the Dallas and Fort Worth offices of Haynes and Boone and member of the Fund Finance Practice Group. For the past two decades, he has represented leading Asian, American, and European banks in secured transactions, primarily syndicated subscription line credit facilities, at all stages of the deal, from initial structuring to closing to various forms of workouts including preparing for structured bankruptcies. His research and writings have focused on specific nuances of several issues, such as cascading pledges, lending to series LLCs, and lien perfection and enforcement, at the core of fund finance products that he feels markets have perilously ignored. He also has extensive experience in developing novel loan structures and negotiating complex intercreditor issues and cross-border transactions.
Mr. Ronnie C. Chan is the Chair of Hang Lung Group Limited and its subsidiary Hang Lung Properties Limited, both publicly listed in Hong Kong. The Group expanded into mainland China in 1992, developing, owning and managing world-class commercial complexes in key tier one and tier two cities. He founded and chairs the China Heritage Fund, is a co-founding Director of The Forbidden City Cultural Heritage Conservation Foundation in Beijing, and is former Vice President and former Advisor of the China Development Research Foundation in Beijing. Mr. Chan is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Chair Emeritus of the Asia Society and Chairman of its Hong Kong Center, and Co-Founder and Chairman of the Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society. He serves or has served on the governing or advisory bodies of several think tanks and universities, which include: Peterson Institute for International Economics, World Economic Forum, East-West Center, Pacific Council on International Policy, Eisenhower Fellowships, The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, University of Southern California, Indian School of Business, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Yale University, Tsinghua University, and Fudan University.
Ee Fai joined Preqin in 2010. He leads Preqin’s research strategy and manages its operations in Asia Pacific. He is one of the pioneer members of the Singapore team and successfully led the setting up of other offices in Hong Kong, Manila and Guangzhou. He has deep experience in private equity, real estate and infrastructure research. Ee Fai received a BEng in Material Engineering from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Preqin’s multilingual research teams in Singapore and Hong Kong build valuable relationships with industry leaders for primary research, while the Manila and Guangzhou teams focus on secondary research via various public sources.
Zoë Hallam is a Group Partner in the Banking and Finance team in Walkers’ Guernsey office and has been with the firm for 10 years, the first eight of which were spent in the Cayman office.
Zoë advises on a broad range of finance-related matters, with a specialised focus on Fund Finance, Real Estate Finance and Islamic Finance transactions. In the Fund Finance sector she has advised both borrowers and lenders on subscription facilities, NAV facilities and GP financing and her clients include leading international banks, alternative lenders and fund managers. She is part of Walkers’ Global Fund Finance team and leads the practice across the Channel Islands.
Prior to joining Walkers in May 2011 Zoë trained and qualified with Salans (now Dentons) in London and Moscow, advising on a broad range of domestic and cross-border financing and restructuring deals, focusing on real estate and project financings in Russia and the CIS.
Sheena Frazer is Counsel in the London office of Mayer Brown’s Restructuring practice. Sheena represents a range of clients, including banks, central banks, funds, insolvency officeholders and directors on a mixture of cross border, contentious and transactional restructuring assignments. In recent mandates, Sheena has advised in the aviation, financial services and construction sectors. As part of Sheena’s diverse practice, she has represented clients both domestically and globally.
Sheena has been recognized in Legal 500 as a key lawyer in the field of Corporate Restructuring & Insolvency.
Mr. Alexander is a Partner and Strategy Head for Specialty Assets in the Ares Credit Group, where he focuses on alternative credit investments. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Ares Credit Group’s Alternative Credit Investment Committee. Prior to joining Ares in 2019, Mr. Alexander was Deputy CEO and Head of Global Market, Americas at Natixis CIB. Previously, he worked at Deutsche Bank within the Interest Rate Derivatives Group. Mr. Alexander began his career as an Economic Analyst at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. He holds a B.S. from Washington and Lee University in Business Administration and Accounting and an M.A. from Fordham University in Economics.
Thomas Smith is an English-qualified partner in the London office of Debevoise & Plimpton.
Recommended by Chambers UK, The Legal 500 UK and IFLR1000, he acts for borrowers, sponsors, and lenders on a wide range of financing transactions at all levels of the capital structure from fund level to investment level. In fund finance, Tom works on all types of transactions and has particular recent expertise in the growth of ESG-linked financings and NAV financings (across PE, Credit and secondaries markets).
In the Legal 500 UK, where the Debevoise fund finance team is ranked Tier 1, Mr. Smith is praised for his ability “to explain complex issues in a straight-forward manner and focus on the real issues, rather than the minutia.”
Albert Tan is a Partner and Co-Head of the Global Fund Financing Group with Haynes and Boone, LLP. Additionally, he serves as a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, Partners Compensation Committee and Strategic Growth Committee.
During his career at the firm, among his lending transactions, he has represented investment and commercial banks, as agents and arrangers in more than $100 billion of subscription secured credit facilities to Asia, US, Europe, Latin America and global real estate, infrastructure, debt, buyout and energy private equity funds, including some of the first real estate private equity funds in Japan, Greater China, Singapore and Korea and some of the largest global infrastructure funds and Asia-focused buyout funds. From 1997 to 2000, while on a secondment from Haynes and Boone, Albert was based in Hong Kong and served as Chief Counsel of Greater China for Caltex Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ChevronTexaco, overseeing all legal affairs for Greater China.
Albert has made presentations sponsored by PERE – Asia, Japan and North America, PEI-COO & CFO Forum, PEI-Global Alternative Investment Forum, Institutional Real Estate, Inc., PrivCap, Asia Law and Practice, Fund Finance Association Global and Asia Fund Finance Symposiums, Texas A&M University of School of Law, and Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business; and is recognized as a Leading Practitioner for International Private Equity by Euromoney Expert Guide and as a Trailblazer in Finance, Banking & Capital Markets by The National Law Journal.
Albert received his BA from San Diego State University and his JD and LLM from Southern Methodist University and Georgetown University; and speaks English and Chinese (Mandarin).
Stuart McIntosh is Executive Director, Head of European Subscription Finance at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Based in London his focus is on originating, structuring and execution of subscription credit facilities whilst also working with SMBC colleagues to deliver the bank’s global product suite to Private Equity Sponsor clients.
Prior to joining SMBC in 2019, Stuart was European Head of Sponsor Coverage & Subscription Finance at Commonwealth Bank of Australia London. He started his career at HSBC where he spent 10yrs in various investment management client coverage and support roles. Stuart is a graduate of Brunel University where he majored in Business.
Matt Glen is a Vice President in the Fund Finance team in ING Bank. ING’s Fund Finance team offer specialised expertise to clients in the investment fund sector, with 24 dedicated professionals located in London, Luxembourg, Singapore and New York. The team provides structured financing products ranging from capital call, portfolio leverage and liquidity financing.
Matt joined ING in 2014 and is based in London. His experience and expertise are in the origination, structuring and execution of fund finance transactions. During his time at ING Matt has worked overseas in the New York-based Fund Finance team focusing on portfolio leverage for credit funds and the Sydney-based Infrastructure Finance team.
Matt graduated in 2013 from the University of Portsmouth with First Class Honours degree in Economics. Prior to joining ING, Matt was on the Corporate Graduate Scheme at Barclays.
Alex is a Partner in the Corporate and Finance Department at Mourant in the Cayman Islands. Alex specialises in banking and finance work.
She frequently advises many of the world’s leading finance institutions and private fund sponsors on the structuring and execution of finance transactions involving secured lending to Cayman Islands companies, partnerships and unit trusts (including hedge funds and private equity funds). She has extensive experience on fund finance matters.
Weijian Shan is chairman and CEO of PAG, a leading Asia-focused private equity firm. Prior to PAG, he was a partner of the private equity firm TPG, and co-managing partner of TPG Asia (formerly known as Newbridge Capital). Over two decades, Weijian Shan has led a number of landmark transactions that have returned billions of dollars in profit to his firms’ investors. Previously, Shan was a managing director of JP Morgan, and an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In his youth, he spent several years working as a laborer in the Gobi Desert of China. He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from the University of San Francisco. Shan is the author of Money Games: The Inside Story of How American Dealmakers Saved Korea’s Most Iconic Bank (2020) and Out of the Gobi: My Story of China and America (2019). His articles and commentary have been published in the Financial Times, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs and many other publications.
Danielle is a Partner in Mourant’s Banking and Finance team in Hong Kong, having practiced in Asia for over 15 years. She advises on a broad spectrum of cross-border transactions, including asset finance (with particular expertise in aviation and shipping finance), fund financing, acquisition and leveraged finance, debt restructurings, project finance, FinTech and general corporate lending.
In fund financing, she regularly represents investment and commercial banks on subscription credit facilities. She is also Co-Head of the Asia-Pacific Executive Committee for the Fund Finance Association, and is on the board of directors of Women in Fund Finance Asia. Danielle has been recognised for her work in fund finance through awards such as the Dee Dee Skylar Women in Fund Finance Award 2020.
Prior to joining Mourant in 2012, she worked at Clifford Chance in Hong Kong and Dentons in London.
Paul leads our Corporate and Investment Funds team in Asia. He is also the Managing Partner of the Hong Kong office.
Paul regularly advises on corporate matters including investment funds, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and the restructuring of companies and structures. These will often be private equity-related transactions.
He has been with Mourant Ozannes since 1999.
BNP Paribas Securities Services is a multi-asset servicing specialist with local expertise in 35 markets around the world and a global reach covering 90+ markets. This extensive network enables us to provide our institutional investor clients with the connectivity and local knowledge they need to navigate change in a fast-moving world.
As of 30 June 2020, BNP Paribas Securities Services had USD 11.343 trillion in assets under custody, USD 2.745 trillion in assets under administration and 10,805 funds administered.
As a leading global wholesale bank, we deliver the insight, experience, and the passion our clients demand – where and when their businesses need it. At Global Banking and Markets, we provide corporate and investment banking and capital markets services to corporate, institutional and government clients globally. We are a full-service wholesale bank in the Americas, serving clients across Canada, the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific. For more information, please visit our website or connect with us on LinkedIn at: scotiabank-gbm.
We are 725+ lawyers serving clients from offices located in the leading financial and business centers in the Americas, Europe and Asia. The world’s leading organizations, companies and corporations choose us to be their representatives in their most critical situations. Moreover, they consider Proskauer a strategic partner to drive their business forward. We work with asset managers, private equity and venture capital firms, Fortune 500 companies, major sports leagues, entertainment industry legends and other industry-redefining companies.
With more than 1,000 lawyers across 17 offices, Morrison & Foerster is a preeminent global law firm dedicated to delivering business-oriented results to clients across Asia, the United States and Europe. Dynamic technology and life science companies, large financial institutions, leading consumer product companies and other market leaders come to MoFo for knowledge, innovation and business aptitude. MoFo handles some of the world’s largest cross-border transactions and resolves major disputes across multiple jurisdictions, as well as having a long-standing commitment to pro bono work and social justice. MoFo is one of the preeminent law firms in Asia, providing integrated US and local law advice. With offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, the firm has handled major matters in China for over 35 years. The Tokyo office is now the largest Japan office of any global firm and one of the largest law firms in Japan, domestic or international. The Singapore office, which opened in 2013, features lawyers with many years of experience in South and Southeast Asia.
ING is a global financial institution with a strong European base, offering banking services through its operating company ING Bank. The purpose of ING Bank is empowering people to stay a step ahead in life and in business. ING Bank’s more than 55,000 employees offer retail and wholesale banking services to customers in over 40 countries.
ING Group shares are listed on the exchanges of Amsterdam (INGA NA, INGA.AS), Brussels and on the New York Stock Exchange (ADRs: ING US, ING.N).
Sustainability forms an integral part of ING’s strategy, evidenced by ING’s leading position in sector benchmarks by Sustainalytics and MSCI and our ‘A-list’ rating by CDP. ING Group shares are included in major sustainability and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) index products of leading providers STOXX, Morningstar and FTSE Russell.
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP is a premier law firm with market-leading practices, a global perspective and strong New York roots. Our private equity practice is a cornerstone of the firm’s Corporate Department, representing a diverse client base of private equity firms and investment funds, advising them on all aspects of their business. We have extensive experience in all facets of fund-level financing transactions and regularly represent our fund clients in this capacity. Our financing lawyers work closely with our fund formation, tax and ERISA lawyers on fund financing transactions. We take a business-oriented approach to develop and implement the best solutions for our sponsor clients and their investors. The breadth of our experience is a direct result of our clients’ bespoke and diverse structures and financing needs, and the depth of our expertise is a direct result of our highly satisfied and loyal client base that rely on us for their fund financing transactions. As a result, we are ranked as Tier 1 firm by Legal 500 UK for fund finance matters.
Fried Frank advises the world’s leading corporations, investment funds and financial institutions on their most critical legal needs and business opportunities. The Firm’s approximately 500 lawyers are based in North America and Europe. Our premier fund finance practice leverages broad representation of borrowers, investors and arrangers, enabling us to better evaluate evolving market conditions and effectively navigate key issues on behalf of our clients. We have extensive experience in a range of financing transactions for investment funds and other pooled investment vehicles across a wide array of strategies, including private equity, mezzanine, real estate, infrastructure, special opportunities and fund of hedge funds, as borrowers.
Loyens & Loeff is a leading law firm with integrated legal and tax practices. We handle all matters relating to banking, corporate, investment funds, private equity, real estate and tax law. Our offices in the Benelux and Switzerland mainly represent banks, financial institutions, investment funds and corporations, operating internationally.
Our global fund finance team advises in relation to the structuring of fund finance transactions and the related security packages. Relying on our extensive experience in the structuring of capital call subscription credit facilities, bridge facilities and permanent leverage facilities, we handle transactions involving alternative or regulated investment fund borrowers of all types, sizes and asset classes. Major lenders, investment fund managers, sponsors and market players in both the US and European markets count on our expertise regarding fund finance transactions. Our dedicated fund finance team has successfully acted for the most active international banks, arrangers, lenders and fund managers in these markets.
Mayer Brown, the founding sponsor of the Annual Subscription Facility and Fund Finance Symposium, is a global legal services organization advising clients across the Americas, Asia and Europe. Mayer Brown’s finance platform is based on the Firm’s global position in the world’s leading markets, and partners dedicated to fund finance matters are located in Charlotte, New York, Chicago, London, Hong Kong and Singapore. As a result, the Firm has relationships with every major US lender along with the majority of active lenders in the European and Asian markets, and our lawyers have represented the lead agent and lenders in more than 550 subscription credit facilities since 2008. In addition to subscription credit facilities, Mayer Brown lawyers are experienced documenting the full suite of fund and portfolio-level financings, including NAV facilities, hybrid facilities, private placements, open-end fund facilities, management fee credit lines and an assortment of leveraged asset level transactions.
Sionic is a global consulting firm. Our focus is on change and we specialise in a unique blend of business and people performance. We are agile, independent and hold a straightforward philosophy – that outstanding people produce outstanding work. We tackle complex operational, economic and strategic problems, big and small, for clients dealing with evolving markets, changing risks, intricate regulation, cultural change, technology and digital advances. We are a global, sector-wide team of experts of longstanding pedigree and one of the world’s fastest growing independent consulting firms. We have over 300 professionals based in more than a dozen locations worldwide, including America, Europe and Asia and we continue to expand at pace. We deliver measurable value. When the world’s leading firms in financial services are looking to accelerate their performance, they call us.
We are a distinctive London-based law firm, focused on our clients and on delivering excellence in the international legal market. We are known for the quality of our work; not just in dealing with the full range of corporate and commercial matters, but in advising clients on their private affairs as well.
We advise on our clients’ most complex matters, whilst at the same time remaining smaller than our competitors. This fosters a cohesive environment of collective experience and close-knit teams and helps to maintain the exceptionally high levels of service and partner involvement that our clients expect.
Yemi Tépé is a partner at Morrison & Foerster, based in the Singapore office. She has over 20 years of experience advising clients on the full spectrum of financings, including domestic and cross-border acquisition and leveraged finance, public to private takeovers, real estate finance, debt restructuring, margin loans, syndicated lending and subscription line financing.
She has represented clients on significant transactions in Singapore, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Hong Kong, mainland China, the U.S. and across Europe. Her practice spans various sectors including: private equity, technology and telecoms, banks and financial institutions, education, energy and real estate. Yemi brings deep transactional experience to the table, regularly advising on big-ticket mandates. Clients include banks and financial institutions, private equity sponsors, multi-national corporations, alternative financiers such as credit funds, hedge funds and asset managers and emerging growth, mid-cap, and large public and privately held companies.
Yemi has been described as “methodical in her work process and extremely responsive” and praised by clients as “a very safe pair of hands”, “very reliable, and never puts a step wrong”, an “extremely commercial and user-friendly” practitioner whose “in-depth knowledge of the private equity financing market paired with strong business acumen allows her to provide commercial legal solutions swiftly”.
Yemi has been ranked as a leading lawyer for Banking and Finance by Chambers Global and Chambers Asia Pacific since 2011. She is highly regarded for her exceptional legal work and has been recognised by IFLR1000, Legal500 APAC and Best Lawyers, Singapore since 2014.
Cameron Roper is a special finance counsel in the Corporate Department and a member of the Private Credit Group (working closely with the Private Funds Group).
Cameron specializes in funds finance and general lending and advisory work, acting for both fund managers and financial institutions. He has been involved in transactions involving net asset value (NAV) facilities, hybrid facilities and subscription line facilities, as well as bridging, acquisition and margin loan facilities. He has also advised on general partner, manager and co-investment facilities. His experience covers a wide range of funds, including credit, infrastructure, real estate, large buyout and mid-market funds, venture funds, fund of funds and emerging market funds.
Cameron was praised in The Legal 500 (2018) for his “commercial approach and problem solving skills.”
Cameron received his Bachelor of Laws (with Honors) from the University of Western Australia and his Master of Banking and Finance Law from the University of Melbourne.
Michael Mbayi is a Director at Wildgen, Luxembourg law firm, in the Banking & Finance practice group. He has an in-depth knowledge of the Fund Finance market, and he advises financial institutions as lenders and lead agents in a wide range of transactions including subscription facilities, hybrid/NAV facilities, and other bespoke Fund Finance solutions. He is the host of the Fund Finance Series, an industry driven webinar where he regularly meets with Fund Finance global experts for in-depth discussions and analysis. Michael is the author of various Fund Finance publications.
Troutman Pepper is a national law firm known for its higher commitment to client care. With more than 1,100 attorneys in 23 U.S. cities, we combine the resources of a large firm with the personal engagement of a trusted adviser. Clients navigating sophisticated finance matters trust our attorneys to proactively assess risk, evaluate the business impact and recommend creative solutions. From financing new opportunities to evaluating and implementing restructuring and workout strategies, we advise lenders, borrowers and other stakeholders on all types of financing transactions, including those with terms and structures which are unconventional, as well as those secured by cross-border collateral. Our Fund Finance practice represents major U.S. banks and lenders on venture capital and private equity bilateral and syndicated subscription-based credit facilities. We are well versed in advising our clients on how to configure capital call loan facilities to address a complex array of the various fund structures.
Nathan Parker is a partner in the Financial Restructuring Group in Cadwalader’s London office. He has worked in the City for over a decade on a large range of financing transactions and has represented leading private equity sponsors, funds and their portfolio companies in connection with their financing of cross border leveraged buyouts, restructurings and holdco and other structured indebtedness. Nathan frequently works on new money investments and direct lending transactions in the restructuring and special situations context as well as fund financing transactions for both borrowers and lenders with clients that include Citibank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Raiffeisen Bank International, Hayfin, Apollo Management, Private Advisers, Hemen Investments Limited, CQS, Makuria Investments, Oaktree Capital, Park Square, Lodbrok Capital, Helios Investment Partners, Njord Partners. He received his B.A. and LL.B. with honours from Monash University, Australia. Nathan is admitted to practice in England and Wales.
Sarah is a partner of Maples and Calder’s Finance team in the Maples Group’s Dublin office. Sarah has extensive experience advising on domestic and cross-border banking transactions. Her practice focuses on advising lenders and borrowers in relation to corporate debt facilities, fund financing, acquisition financing, real estate financing (investment and development) and debt restructurings.
Sarah was elected as a partner in 2016. Prior to joining the Maples Group, she worked in the banking team at Allen & Overy in London and Addleshaw Goddard in Manchester.
Sarah Francis is noted for her “sensible, pragmatic and sound advice” – The Legal 500 2019
Chambers Global 2019 described Sarah Francis as “great at breaking down complex problems and coming up with appropriate solutions. She has excellent attention to detail and provides excellent customer service.”
Ken Bigelow is an experienced global CIO, who has built and led high performing technology, operations, and compliance functions for institutional banking and capital markets businesses across a broad set of asset classes. Ken is also the co-creator of FundFinance, a unique new suite of AI and machine-learning tools created specifically for fund finance lenders. Ken is an expert in navigating change, negotiating stakeholder needs and delivering results. As a Sionic Managing Partner, Ken implements a wide range of projects supporting front, middle, back office functions for fixed income, equity trading, structured finance, commercial lending and asset management. His specialisms also include IT strategy, application delivery, infrastructure, business process engineering, provider management, regulatory compliance, business continuity planning, risk mitigation and management, capital markets products and structured credit. Ken regularly speaks, writes and broadcasts on a range of data and technology topics including artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Vahe Andonians is Founding Partner of Cognaize, a startup specialising in the AI-based processing of financial documents. Vahe is also a senior lecturer at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and a partner alongside Moody’s Analytics at Traidum, which is building a blockchain based negotiation platform for trading Structured Credit products. In 2017 Vahe sold his earlier startup – SCDM, an AI-based analytics company specialized in the fixed income market. Having started as a data provider for investors in structured credit in 2003, SCDM had broadened its services from data management to bespoke IT solutions into reporting, business intelligence, and cash flow simulations for investors in structured credit. Vahe was leading the product development and research arm of SCDM, with a strong focus on machine learning and blockchain 2.0 technologies. Before that, Vahe founded, raised and sold several start-ups in the area of machine learning, having previously co-managed a statistical equity arbitrage hedge fund in Austria. Vahe holds an Engineer title in information and high-frequency technology from the Federal Higher Technical Institute for Education and Experimentation in Moedling, Austria and an MBA from the University of Liverpool, England.
Malindri De Alwis is a Director of Fund Finance at Standard Chartered Bank. She specializes in a range of Fund Finance transactions across the fund life, including Subscription Finance, Hybrid, Net Asset Value, and GP Financing. She has experience in originating, structuring, and executing Fund Finance transactions across sectors, including Real Estate and Infrastructure funds. Her primary focus is in the Americas, with further interaction in Fund Finance offerings across the Bank’s footprint globally in Asia, Africa, and Middle East.
Jeff Johnston, CFA, is a Managing Director and the Head of Asset Management within Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking group. Mr. Johnston oversees a team of corporate and investment bankers who deliver a broad array of products and services, inclusive of advisory, debt and equity capital markets, subscription finance, management company loans, treasury management & depository services and other banking products for traditional and alternative asset managers globally.
Mr. Johnston is a CFA charterholder and received a BA from the University of South Florida in Physics, and is currently the Chairman of the Fund Finance Association, a global industry association for constituents in the fund finance space.
Todd Cubbage has more than 25 years of experience in the financial services industry representing lenders and commercial paper conduits in structuring, negotiating and documenting sophisticated lending arrangements. Since the early 2000s, Todd’s legal practice has primarily focused on assisting lenders arrange multi-jurisdictional, subscription secured credit facilities with top-tier private equity and real estate funds, and, as a result, he has served as lead counsel on many of the largest domestic and cross-border subscription credit facilities. Prior to focusing on subscription lending, Todd represented commercial banks and commercial paper conduits in connection with corporate and middle market loans, leases and securitization transactions. Todd is a member of Haynes and Boone’s global Finance Practice Group and serves as the Administrative Partner of the Charlotte Office of Haynes and Boone.
Derek Stenson is a Partner in the Cayman Islands office of Conyers and advises on a broad range of corporate, finance and regulatory matters involving Cayman Islands companies and partnerships.
In the fund finance arena Derek leads the Conyers fund finance team in the Cayman Islands and acts for some of the most prominent lenders to Cayman Islands private equity, venture capital and hedge funds.
Derek also has particular expertise advising on repackagings and collateralized loan obligations, corporate finance and M&A transactions, portfolio transfers, restructurings, stock exchange listings, mergers, migrations, contractual negotiations and regulatory and compliance matters.
Matt Taber is a partner in our Cayman office and is a well-known specialist in Cayman Islands investment funds, fund finance, regulation and cryptoassets. He has advised many of the world’s leading asset managers in 15 years of practice in the Cayman Islands. In addition, Matt is a specialist in acting for banks that operate in the fund or subscription finance space. Prior to joining Harneys, Matt worked for other leading firms in the Cayman Islands. Before coming to the Cayman Islands, he was a corporate and M&A lawyer in London for seven years.
Matt is a member of the board of the Cayman Islands chapter of AIMA and he regularly participates in Government and legislative and regulatory industry working groups.
Jan Sysel is a partner in the Corporate Department and the Finance Practice, resident in Fried Frank’s New York office.
Mr. Sysel represents sponsors, borrowers, arrangers and lenders on a wide variety of financing transactions primarily in connection with fund formation, as well as leveraged acquisitions, spinoffs, recapitalizations and restructurings, across a broad range of industries. He has extensive experience in structuring, negotiating, documenting and executing complex financings, including syndicated senior facilities, mezzanine facilities and private debt placements. His work includes unsecured and secured first and second lien facilities, both cashflow-based and asset-based, with particular focus on fund subscription facilities and other types of investment fund leverage.
Mr. Sysel previously went on a long-term secondment to a financial services company, where he advised on loan transactions for private wealth management clientele. Prior to joining Fried Frank, he practiced corporate law in the Czech Republic for several years and served in the Czech Army as a staff attorney at the Litigation Department of the Czech Ministry of Defense.
Mr. Sysel received JD from Charles University Law School (Prague) in 1999, his JSD from Charles University Law School (Prague) in 2002 and his LLM from Columbia Law School in 2005, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He is admitted to the bar in New York.
Alistair is a partner in the finance and corporate group of Carey Olsen in the Cayman Islands and advises on all aspects of finance, corporate, investment funds and commercial law, with a particular focus on lender side work in the fund finance space.
Alistair is rated as a Leading Lawyer – Highly Regarded in IFLR1000 2019.
Alistair was formerly with Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, each in London.
A Partner in Simpson Thacher’s Banking and Credit and Fund Finance Practices, Julia Kohen concentrates her practice on representing financial sponsors in connection with debt financings for their private equity, real estate, infrastructure, mezzanine debt and other investment funds. She has extensive experience in complicated financings designed to provide fund-level leverage to facilitate and support investment activities, as well as management lines and employee and co-investment loan programs. Recently, Julia was recognized by Law360 as a 2020 “Rising Star” in Banking.
In addition, Julia has co-authored chapters in several editions of Global Legal Insights’ Fund Finance guide, which covers legal trends and developments in the greater fund finance market and provides law firms, financial institutions, funds and investors with comprehensive insight
Kristin Rylko is a partner in Mayer Brown’s Banking & Finance practice. Kristin represents a variety of banks, financial institutions and funds across a range of lending transactions, with a particular emphasis on the financing of investment funds. Kristin has extensive experience structuring complex domestic and international financing transactions to private funds, sponsors and portfolio companies on a secured and unsecured basis, acting for both lenders and borrowers. Her fund finance experience encompasses a wide spectrum of transactions at all levels of the capital structure and every phase of a fund’s existence, including traditional subscription lines, NAV and hybrid facilities, management fee lines, after-care facilities, open-end fund lending, loans to separate accounts and fund of fund financings. Kristin’s experience also includes sponsor employee and partner co-investment loan programs and financings to individuals and their estate planning vehicles secured by private equity assets.
Jeremy is a Senior Vice President in Macquarie’s Fund Finance team, focusing on providing asset backed facilities and bespoke subscription commitment facilities to private equity funds and private equity secondary funds. Jeremy has over 8 eight years of experience underwriting, structuring and syndicating transactions in the US and Europe. Jeremy received a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales in 2008.
Arthur Cox is one of Ireland’s leading law firms. For 100 years, we have led the way in the legal field in Ireland. We are an “all-island” firm with offices in Dublin and Belfast. We also have offices in London, New York and San Francisco. Our practice encompasses all aspects of corporate and business law.
We provide targeted advice to banks, financial institutions and new players emerging in the financial services sector. The cross-departmental team of lawyers drawn from our Banking and Finance, Capital Markets, Asset Management and Investment Funds, Financial Regulation, Corporate and M&A, Tax, and Litigation and Dispute Resolution practices has unrivalled breadth and depth of experience working with financial services institutions nationally and internationally.
Joseph Rocco is a Managing Director in Blackstone Treasury and is involved in credit and risk management initiatives for Blackstone’s Treasury operations, including risk assessment for the firm’s cash management and investment strategies. He works closely with counterparts from throughout the firm and its funds on funding initiatives and FX hedging and trading strategies. Prior to joining Blackstone, Mr. Rocco worked at Moody’s Investors Service covering residential mortgage and asset-backed securities where his primary responsibilities included rating surveillance, methodology development and sector commentary. Mr. Rocco holds an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BS in Finance from Fordham University.
Kevin Purcell is a Managing Director of Neuberger Berman and a member of the Dyal Capital Partners Investment Team. Kevin originally joined Lehman Brothers in 2006 as a member of the Absolute Return Strategies Group, spending time in strategic roles across Lehman Brothers’ hedge fund platform, the minority stake acquisition program and most recently with Neuberger Berman Private Equity. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers he was an Analyst at White Peak Capital focusing on strategic acquisitions. Kevin earned an M.B.A from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University and holds a B.S. in Finance from Siena College.
Michael Orphanides is a Managing Director and Head, Asset & Wealth Managers in Corporate Bank, part of the Global FIG franchise in BMO Capital Markets. Prior to joining BMO Capital Markets, Michael worked at Barclays for 15 years in London and most recently their NY office, where he was Head of the FIG – Americas Corporate Banking practice.
Terrence is an Executive Director in the US Structured Credit & Solutions Group of Natixis. Terrence joined Natixis in June 2006. He focuses on the origination and structuring of subscription credit facilities and asset backed transactions across a range of asset classes. Terrence has over 20 years of experience in asset classes such as capital calls, certified capital companies, consumer assets, small business loans, equipment loans and leases, manufactured housing, structured and life settlements.
From 1998 to 2006, he worked in the Structured Finance Group at Financial Security Assurance.
Terrence holds a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Rutgers University.
Martin Wurth is a partner in the Banking, Finance and Capital Markets department of Clifford Chance’s Luxembourg office and specialises in structured finance, asset finance, acquisition finance, real estate finance and general bank lending in cross border and local transactions. He has a long-standing experience in advising on financings to investment funds and taking security with respect to NAV facilities, subscription facilities or hybrid facilities. Martin works lender-side for major investment banks and borrower-side for large investment funds in Luxembourg.
Jeffrey Frank joined Angelo Gordon in 2014 as the firm’s Treasurer. Before joining Angelo Gordon, Jeff was a Vice President overseeing Treasury and Structured Funding for Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM). During Jeff’s almost 16 years at GSAM he held several positions within their alternative investment businesses. Jeff was a member of GSAM’s private equity group and hedge fund strategy business units where he focused on liquidity, funding, structuring, and financial due diligence. Jeff holds a B.A. degree from Saint Anselm College.
Eli Mou is Managing Director in the US Financial Sponsor team at The Bank of Nova Scotia. In his current role, Eli manages a team of 10 fund finance professionals in a credit underwriting and portfolio management capacity. Eli has extensive experience analyzing complex fund financing transactions covering a portfolio across subscription finance, Asset Based Lending, 1940 Act lending and hybrid facilities. Eli joined the Bank of Nova Scotia in June 2006 as an Associate and has held progressively more senior positions over his tenure across various different industries including, Diversified, Technology, Real Estate and Power. Prior to joining the Bank, Eli worked one year as a Consultant for First Annapolis Consulting covering the payment space and three years as a Research Analyst for the Federal Reserve Board analyzing competitive issues in the banking sector. Eli holds an MBA from Georgetown University and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Vassar College.
Mark Gilles manages the Equity Fund Services Group (EFS) at Comerica Bank. Based in Palo Alto California, with offices in New York City and Boston, Equity Fund Services provides depository and credit products including capital call lines of credit, subscription lines, and loans to management companies to select Venture Capital and Private Equity firms throughout the United States and Canada.
Mark joined Comerica in 2012 and his prior background combines 20 years of commercial banking experience with over 10 years of direct investing experience with Tangent Growth Fund L.P., a San Francisco based private equity firm.
Mark is a CPA and began his career with Coopers and Lybrand (now PWC) in San Francisco. He earned a BS in Business with a concentration in accounting from San Jose State University, and has an MBA from Santa Clara University.
Mark has been active as a volunteer with youth sports, and Boy Scouts, and he has served in leadership positions of notable charitable and public benefit organizations including Hope Rehabilitation Services, Santa Clara, Ca. (Board President), Vista Center, Palo Alto Ca. (Finance), and the Menlo Park City School District, (Bond Oversight Committee Chair). Mark lives in Menlo Park California with his wife Mary who is a real estate agent. They have two children attending college.
Chris Spitzhoff is a Vice President at Carlyle and leads the fund operations and administration for its U.S Buyout funds. Prior to Carlyle, Mr. Spitzhoff led portfolio operations and administration at Corrum Capital Management and the principal investing division of Bank of America, and held consulting roles in the Lending and Leasing practice at BearingPoint. Mr. Spitzhoff holds a B.S. from Appalachian State University and earned his M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Jonathan Peiper is Managing Director and head of the subscription finance business at Mizuho Americas. In this role he is responsible for originating, structuring, arranging, and executing subscription credit facilities and other fund financings for the firm.
Mr. Peiper has over 20 years of experience in subscription finance and was previously Managing Director & Group Head in Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation’s (SMBC) Subscription Secured Finance Department.
He joined SMBC in 1997 as a member of the Public Finance Department where he focused on providing letters of credit, loans, and bond purchases for municipalities, hospitals, not-for-profits, and public and private partnerships.
Mr. Peiper holds a BA in International Relations from Tulane University and an MBA in Corporate Finance from the New York University Stern School of Business.
Elizabeth specialises in banking and finance law, advising clients in structuring, negotiating, implementing and restructuring a range of financing transactions. She acts for leading domestic and global financial institutions, alternative lenders, major corporates, private equity funds and limited partnerships across a wide range of domestic and cross-border finance transactions. These include real estate financing (investment and development), acquisition and leveraged finance, project finance and fund financing, through bilateral and syndicated deals. Elizabeth also advises on loan portfolio sales, acting for purchasers, vendors and servicers.
SJL Jimenez Lunz is a Luxembourg high-end independent business law firm renowned for its savoir faire and reliability with a strong expertise and track record, among others, in Banking & Finance and Fund Finance.
SJL’s teams act both on the side of leading financial institutions and for private equity funds, real estate funds, infrastructure and green and sustainable investment funds.
SJL provides the highest level of legal services in complex cross-border transactions related to all types of funds’ dedicated products, such as capital call facilities and subscription-line facilities, NAV facilities, umbrella facilities.
KBRA is a global full-service rating agency dedicated to the restoration of trust in credit ratings. Our core values of Innovation, Collaboration, and Integrity guide everything that we do, from the creation of new standards for assessing risk to offering timely and transparent ratings that the markets have come to rely on. Our mission has been well received and since our founding in 2010, KBRA has established itself as the fastest growing post-crisis rating agency. In that time, KBRA has published over 36,790 ratings and expanded into Europe to better support our long-term strategy of educating the markets globally. Headquartered in New York City, KBRA has 370 employees with additional offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Dublin, and London.
At KBRA, we value new ideas and are wary of conventional thinking that stifles Innovation. We believe that Collaboration is key to our success in providing better products for investors, who have come to trust the analysis and Integrity behind our ratings.
Sola Akinola is the Director of Research (Americas) at Preqin, the alternative assets industry’s leading source of data, insights and solutions, where he heads a team of over 50 analysts responsible for direct engagements with asset managers and institutional investors across all alternative asset classes. In addition to having full ownership of the Americas’ exclusive, forward-looking and actionable data, Sola is a core part of the senior management of Preqin’s Americas operations.
Prior to joining Preqin, Sola was the Global Head of Deals & Data Content at Mergermarket (an Acuris Company) where he was responsible for the origination, development and execution of content initiatives enhancing Mergermarket’s global M&A deals & data product offering.
With over 15 years of experience working in the financial information industry in both Europe and North America, Sola has played the role of data ambassador through numerous presentations and public speaking engagements covering the M&A and alternative assets industries.
Sunil Mody is a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley responsible for all hedging activities globally for the private investment funds across Investment Management. Product oversight primarily includes risk based solutions in the foreign currency and interest rate derivative markets. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley in 2009, Sunil was with JPMorgan for eight years, and was last Vice President in the FX Institutional Sales Group covering clients in the real estate, infrastructure, and asset management sectors. Sunil graduated with distinction from University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, with a degree in Bachelor of Business Administration.
Raghav Wadhawan is an Executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank. Based in London, he is one of the founding members of the Financial and Strategic Investors Group which is a global coverage team focused on origination and execution of transactions for Private Equity and Sovereign Wealth Funds across the fund and asset level. His focus is on covering large cap Sponsors across Private Equity, Real Estate, Credit, and Infrastructure sectors and on a global basis. Raghav held the position as Acting Head of Fund Finance and is responsible for supporting Sponsor clients with fund facilities, ranging across Subscription, Hybrid, NAV, and GP Financing. Prior to joining Standard Chartered Bank, Raghav worked at Royal Bank of Scotland and Lehman Brothers. He has an Economics degree from the London School of Economics and a Masters in Finance from Imperial College. Raghav is also a CFA charterholder.
Pierre Maugüé is a partner in the Finance Group at Debevoise & Plimpton. Mr. Maugüé focuses his practice on fund-level, acquisition and leveraged buyout financings and structured financings.
Mr. Maugüé brings a global perspective to his work, having lived and worked in Asia, Europe and the United States. He joined Debevoise in 1999 in the firm’s Hong Kong office. He relocated to the New York office in 2002 before moving to London in 2014.
Mr. Maugüé has been recommended by The Legal 500 UK every year since relocating to London, and was previously recommended in The Legal 500 US. The guide has described him as “a trusted adviser who helps clients achieve goals in the most efficient manner”. Mr. Maugüé is also recommended as a leading lawyer by IFLR1000 (2019) and Chambers UK (2019).
Julie is the head of J.P. Morgan Chase’s commercial real estate subscription lending platform. Julie works closely with institutional investors and fund managers on strategically investing in real estate.
Julie began her career structuring and underwriting commercial real estate loans for LaSalle Bank in 1995, before moving to Jones Lang LaSalle to assist clients with land development strategies. In 1998, she rejoined LaSalle Bank to develop and manage an institutional real estate division before joining RBS Citizens in 2008, where she was hired to build out a team focused on the generation of new business and asset management for a portfolio of real estate loans. Julie joined J.P. Morgan in 2010.
She is a former President and current board member of the Chicago Chapter and National Board of the Real Estate Lenders Association (RELA). Julie acts a mentor for the Goldie Initiative, which focuses on advancing the next generation of women leaders in the real estate industry.
Julie received her bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois, and frequently returns to campus as a guest lecturer.
A native of the Chicagoland area, Mrs. Thick resides in Hinsdale, IL with her husband, Scott, and three children, Kaitlyn, Tyler and Dylan.
Guy Simpson is regional president at Bridge Bank where he heads the Equity Fund Resources group, a central hub for the private equity and venture capital communities. Providing financial solutions such as venture capital call lines of credit, SBIC funds, and other credit facilities, Guy helps clients across the U.S. that are focused on the goal of being responsive to their portfolio company needs and enhancing IRR. Based in Tysons, VA, he joined Western Alliance’s Bridge Bank in 2017 and has more than 20 years of tech lending experience in Silicon Valley and other innovation centers.
Alex is a Partner in Mourant’s Cayman Islands office and specialises in private equity, investment funds and related corporate and commercial work. He frequently advises many of the world’s leading private fund sponsors on the structuring and establishment of investment funds, secondary transactions and related deals. He has extensive experience on fund finance matters.
Before relocating to the Cayman Islands, Alex led the investment funds practice in our Hong Kong office, advising on some of the largest fundraisings in the Asia region.
Albert Tan is a Partner and Co-Head of the Global Fund Financing Group with Haynes and Boone, LLP. Additionally, he serves as a member of the firm’s Board of Directors, Partners Compensation Committee and Strategic Growth Committee.
During his career at the firm, among his lending transactions, he has represented investment and commercial banks, as agents and arrangers in more than $100 billion of subscription secured credit facilities to Asia, US, Europe, Latin America and global real estate, infrastructure, debt, buyout and energy private equity funds, including some of the first real estate private equity funds in Japan, Greater China, Singapore and Korea and some of the largest global infrastructure funds and Asia-focused buyout funds. From 1997 to 2000, while on a secondment from Haynes and Boone, Albert was based in Hong Kong and served as Chief Counsel of Greater China for Caltex Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ChevronTexaco, overseeing all legal affairs for Greater China.
Albert has made presentations sponsored by PERE – Asia, Japan and North America, PEI-COO & CFO Forum, PEI-Global Alternative Investment Forum, Institutional Real Estate, Inc., PrivCap, Asia Law and Practice, Fund Finance Association Global and Asia Fund Finance Symposiums, Texas A&M University of School of Law, and Southern Methodist University Cox School of Business; and is recognized as a Leading Practitioner for International Private Equity by Euromoney Expert Guide and as a Trailblazer in Finance, Banking & Capital Markets by The National Law Journal.
Albert received his BA from San Diego State University and his JD and LLM from Southern Methodist University and Georgetown University; and speaks English and Chinese (Mandarin).
Mike Pugatch joined HarbourVest’s secondary investment team in 2003. He focuses on the origination and execution of secondary investments ranging from traditional limited partnership purchases to more complex transactions. Mike currently serves on the advisory boards of a number of private equity partnerships and also sits on the firm’s Secondary and Real Assets investment committees.
Mike joined the Firm from UBS Warburg, where he spent two years in the Global Media Investment Banking Group focusing on mergers and acquisitions, corporate financings, and restructurings. He also has prior experience in the Technology Investment Banking Group at PaineWebber.
Mike received a BS (summa cum laude) in Business Administration from Babson College in 2001.
Walt is a Managing Director, Co-head of Direct Lending and member of the Investment Committee of Onex Credit. Walt has 33 years of experience in the leveraged loan, high yield and mezzanine markets. Prior to joining Onex Credit, Walt was Senior Credit Officer and Chief Operations Officer of the Private Credit Group in the Merchant Banking Division of Goldman Sachs. Previously he held positions at Credit Suisse, Scotiabank and Ernst & Whinney. Walt earned a B.S. from Bryan College and an M.B.A. from Georgia State University.
Nick Fleischhacker joined HarbourVest in 2019 to head the newly created Capital Markets team. His responsibilities include overseeing banking relationships and the use of credit and hedging products across the platform.
Nick returned to Boston to join HarbourVest from Miami, where he spent five years working for two active issuers in the public sector and private sectors raising over $15 billion debt financing. Prior to that he spent over fifteen years in investment banking with RBC Capital Markets (including predecessor firms Tucker Anthony and Dain Rauscher) in New York and Boston. He worked most recently in the industrials investment banking coverage group and prior to that in the infrastructure and public finance groups. Nick’s banking experience includes arranging financings across a wide range of debt products, industries and credit types as well as work in M&A and equity capital markets.
Nick received a BA from Carleton College and an MBA in Finance from Boston University. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
William Cox is a Senior Managing Director and Senior Analyst in the Funds, Insurance, and Public Finance Ratings groups at Kroll Bond Rating Agency (KBRA), where he also leads the Funds and Insurance analytical teams. Bill has over 25 years of experience in credit ratings.
Before joining KBRA, Bill led DSA Capital, LLC, a provider of consulting services and investment capital for private companies, government agencies, private equity platforms, and philanthropies working to improve K-12 public education in the United States.
Previously, Bill was an executive managing director of strategic operations at Standard & Poor’s (now S&P Global Ratings), where he led global teams responsible for market development, quantitative analytics, project management, and data operations. During his time at S&P, Bill also served as a managing director in School Evaluation Services and in the Public Finance Ratings Group and managed the Infrastructure Finance Group.
Bill serves on the board of directors of Young Audiences Arts for Learning, the nation’s largest arts-in-education learning network serving over 5 million children; and is on the advisory board of Teachers College (TC), Columbia University’s Office of School and Community Partnerships, which connects TC resources to support public education in Harlem schools.
Bill holds a B.A. in history with a minor in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA in business administration from New York University. He also completed executive management programs at Columbia University, the University of Virginia, and at INSEAD in France.
Thomas Chiarello is a Manager on the Treasury Capital Markets team at TPG. In this role, he is responsible for financing and capital markets activity of the firm and its funds, and bank relationship management. Prior to joining TPG in 2017, Mr. Chiarello was an Associate at Bank of America, where he covered a portfolio of non-bank financial institutions. Mr. Chiarello graduated from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin.
Mr. Alexander is a Partner in the Ares Credit Group, where he focuses on alternative credit investments. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Ares Credit Group’s Alternative Credit Investment Committee. Prior to joining Ares in 2019, Mr. Alexander was Deputy CEO and Head of Global Market, Americas at Natixis CIB. Previously, he worked at Deutsche Bank within the Interest Rate Derivatives Group. Mr. Alexander began his career as an Economic Analyst at the New York Federal Reserve Bank. He holds a B.S. from Washington and Lee University in Business Administration and Accounting and an M.A. from Fordham University in Economics.
Victoria Stewart leads the fund financing team at Partners Group and is based in Zug, Switzerland. She has been with Partners Group since 2011 and has 16 years of industry experience. Prior to joining Partners Group, she worked at Burness LLP (now Burness Paull LLP). She holds a bachelor’s degree in law, a master’s degree in management and a postgraduate diploma in legal practice from the University of Aberdeen, UK and a master’s degree in international business law from the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. She is also admitted as a solicitor in Scotland and as a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and is a registered notary public in Scotland.
Partners Group is a global private markets investment manager, serving over 900 institutional investors. It has USD 94 billion in assets under management and more than 1,400 professionals across 20 offices worldwide. Partners Group realizes potential in private markets by financing and developing great companies, desirable real estate and essential infrastructure. Partners Group creates value in its investments through active and long-term responsible ownership.
We work with a wide range of customers, from small enterprises to mid-market companies and large multinationals, providing them with the tools they need to function efficiently. As a cornerstone of the HSBC Group we have the financial strength to support our customers with working capital, term loans and acquisition or project finance, and the expertise to help them raise money from the stock and bond markets. HSBC Commercial Banking operates in 53 countries and territories, covering the developed and developing markets that matter most to our customers. Through our teams of relationship managers we connect businesses to opportunities, helping them to thrive and grow.
Scotiabank is a leading bank in the Americas. We provide a broad range of advice, products and services, including personal and commercial banking, wealth management and private banking, corporate and investment banking, and capital markets. Subscription finance is a strategic product within Scotiabank’s fund finance platform, which includes traditional lending, prime services, repurchase agreements, total return swaps and conduit finance.
Scotiabank has been a leading financial services provider in the U.S. for more than 125 years. With a team of more than 100,000 employees globally and assets of over $1 trillion (as at October 31, 2019), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: BNS) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BNS). For more information, visit www.scotiabank.com and follow us on Twitter @ScotiabankViews.
Ben Berman is a finance partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Latham & Watkins. A member of the firm’s Banking and Private Equity Finance Practices, Ben represents private equity and private debt funds on their lines of credit ranging in size from $10 million to multiple billions, including: umbrella facilities for multiple funds; uncommitted and committed lines; feeder fund structures; business development companies; separately managed accounts and funds of one; and aggregator funds. Ben also represents borrowers in secured lending and other financing transactions, including: acquisition and corporate financings; NAV and fund level financings; cash-flow and receivables financings; and asset-based loans.
Robert joined 17Capital in 2010 and became Partner in 2014. He leads the New York office, where he is now based, having established our presence there in 2016. He was previously at Merrill Lynch, Lloyds Banking Group and Ashurst Morris Crisp. He studied at HEC Paris and The University of Edinburgh.
Locust Point Capital is an asset management firm specializing in direct lending to the lower middle market seniors housing and care industry. We deliver an opportunistic way for institutional investors to access this sector. Our team has broad lending and investing experience and our investment philosophy is built on providing the transparency, flexibility, and reliability that sophisticated investors demand.
Locust Point Capital’s philosophy of alignment of interests is a guiding principle of our success with our investors, our borrowers, and our team. We seek to partner with long-term, exceptional institutional investors who share our vision for the firm’s future. Our goal at Locust Point Capital is to add value to our investors’ portfolios by achieving strong risk adjusted returns.
Thomas (Tom) Nowak is a Managing Director in Bank of America’s market-leading Syndicated Finance group. In this capacity he is responsible for leading the distribution and execution of syndicated debt facilities.
Clients include opportunity funds, hedge funds, debt funds, private equity funds, real estate funds, public pension plans and institutionally-sponsored entities as well as REITs.
Mr. Nowak has 23 years of experience in structuring, syndicating and executing debt transactions across all levels of the capital structure. Prior to assuming his current role, he worked in investment banking as well as financial and economic consulting.
Tom holds Series 7, 24 and 63 licenses and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (BBA in Finance) and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (MBA in Finance and Accounting).
Katten is a full-service law firm with more than 700 attorneys in locations across the United States and in London and Shanghai. Clients seeking sophisticated, high-value legal services turn to Katten for counsel locally, nationally and internationally. The firm’s core areas of practice include corporate, financial markets and funds, insolvency and restructuring, litigation, real estate, commercial finance, intellectual property, structured finance and securitization, transactional tax planning and private wealth. Katten represents public and private companies in numerous industries, as well as a number of government and nonprofit organizations and individuals.
China Merchants Bank is headquartered in Shenzhen, China and is ranked 19th in terms of Tier-One Capital among the Top 1000 Global Banks of The Banker with more than 1,800 branches worldwide in more than 130 cities. The China Merchants Bank New York Branch offers a wide range of Fund Finance, M&A Finance, Structured Finance, Transaction Banking, Private Banking, and Financial Market services to clients globally with particular focus in the United States and China.
Chatham Financial is the largest independent financial risk management advisory and technology firm. A leader in debt and derivative solutions, Chatham provides clients with access to in-depth knowledge, innovative tools, and an incomparable team of nearly 700 employees to help mitigate risks associated with interest rate, foreign currency, and commodity exposures. Founded in 1991, Chatham serves more than 3,000 companies across a wide range of industries — handling over $700 billion in transaction volume annually and helping businesses maximize their value in the capital markets, every day.
To learn more, visit chathamfinancial.com.
Jonah leads the global analytics team for Chatham Financial’s Private Equity & Infrastructure practice. With more than 15 years of capital markets experience, he advises financial sponsors and their portfolio companies on risk management strategy, analysis, and execution with respect to interest rate and foreign currency exposures using financial derivatives. Since joining Chatham in 2013, Jonah has advised sponsors in the structuring and implementation of hedging solutions and risk management programs totaling over USD 100 billion in hedged notional.
Prior to joining Chatham, Jonah worked 8 years in fixed income and currency markets both on the buy and sell sides, on J.P. Morgan and BNP Paribas’ swap desks, as well as a global fund manager for Amundi, before serving as CFO of a startup company. Jonah received a Masters in Finance from HEC Paris and an MBA from Duke University where he graduated as a Fuqua scholar.
Foley Hoag is committed to helping our clients achieve their desired results by excelling in the time-honored practices of the legal profession and seizing on new ways to continuously improve our performance and service level. Since 1943, Foley Hoag has represented public and private clients in a wide range of disputes and transactions around the world. Our debt finance practice provides a full range of services to both borrowers and lenders in commercial loan transactions and debt offerings. We have established a lengthy record of success in industries such as life sciences, healthcare, technology, energy/renewables, investment management and professional services. From our offices in Boston, Washington, D.C., New York, and Paris, we provide creative, strategic legal advice tailored to clients’ unique goals, and our lawyers share a common emphasis on superior client service. For more information on the firm, visit: www.foleyhoag.com
Eric Schwitzer is a partner in the Real Estate practice of Paul Hastings and is based in the firm’s New York office. He practices in all areas of commercial real estate transactions, with a primary focus on real estate finance and equity. Mr. Schwitzer represents major financial institutions, developers and private equity funds in connection with complex domestic and international commercial matters, including cross-border investment platforms, corporate credit facilities, capital commitment-backed subscription credit facilities, commercial loans, restructurings, bankruptcy, loan sales, loan workouts, acquisitions and dispositions.
Philip is responsible for National Australia Bank’s Financial Sponsor Sales (Markets) team and is a Director in NAB’s Sydney based Solutions Sales group. Prior to joining NAB, Philip was based in London as a Managing Director at Macquarie, overseeing their financial sponsor and solutions sales business in Europe. Phil has more than 16 years’ experience in interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives markets in both Europe and Asia and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce (Accounting and Finance) from the University of New South Wales.
Laurie Lawler is a Managing Director at Societe Generale, joining in October 2018 to head up non-traditional ABS lending, origination in the private debt financing space in addition to heading up ABS origination. Laurie has 19 years of experience in the origination, structuring and execution of asset-backed financings ranging from traditional conduit securitizations to more esoteric fund financing transactions. Prior to joining SG, she was a Managing Director at HSBC where she ran the Structured Finance platform in the Americas, which consisted of a suite of product offerings ranging from securitization to capital call and middle market loan financings. During her tenure at HSBC, Laurie ran the conduit securitization team and later moved on to create a Capital Call Financing platform which was successfully rolled out in both Europe and Asia. Prior to joining HSBC, Laurie spent 5 years within Citi’s Global Securitized Markets division executing conduit securitization transactions. Laurie graduated from Iona College in 2001 with a B.A. in Mathematics.
Northern Trust Corporation (Nasdaq: NTRS) is a leading provider of wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking to corporations, institutions, affluent families and individuals. Founded in Chicago in 1889, Northern Trust has a global presence with offices in 21 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., and across 23 locations in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. As of December 31, 2019, Northern Trust had assets under custody/administration of $12.1 trillion, and assets under management of $1.2 trillion. For more than 130 years, Northern Trust has earned distinction as an industry leader for exceptional service, financial expertise, integrity and innovation. Northern Trust has a team of specialized professionals servicing private equity firms through the delivery of a unique mix of corporate banking, fund administration and wealth management solutions. Northern Trust’s highly focused strategy and long-term commitment to the private equity market has been a major driver of the success of our sponsor finance business.
David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Co-Executive Chairman of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest and most successful private investment firms. Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987. Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing $222 billion from 33 offices around the world.
Mr. Rubenstein is Chairman of the Boards of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Council on Foreign Relations; a Fellow of the Harvard Corporation; a Trustee of the National Gallery of Art, the University of Chicago, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Brookings Institution, and the World Economic Forum; a Director of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and President of the Economic Club of Washington.
Mr. Rubenstein is a member of the American Philosophical Society, Business Council, Harvard Global Advisory Council (Chairman), Madison Council of the Library of Congress (Chairman), Board of Dean’s Advisors of the Business School at Harvard, Advisory Board of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University (former Chairman), and Board of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community.
Mr. Rubenstein has served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Duke University and Co-Chairman of the Board of the Brookings Institution.
Mr. Rubenstein is an original signer of The Giving Pledge, a significant donor to all of the above-mentioned non-profit organizations, and a recipient of the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy, and the MoMA’s David Rockefeller Award, among other philanthropic awards.
Mr. Rubenstein has been a leader in the area of Patriotic Philanthropy, having made transformative gifts for the restoration or repair of the Washington Monument, Monticello, Montpelier, Mount Vernon, Arlington House, Iwo Jima Memorial, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the National Archives, the National Zoo, the Library of Congress, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Mr. Rubenstein has also provided to the U.S. government long-term loans of his rare copies of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th Amendment, the first map of the U.S. (Abel Buell map), and the first book printed in the U.S. (Bay Psalm Book).
Mr. Rubenstein is the host of The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations on Bloomberg TV and PBS, and the author of The American Story: Conversations with Master Historians, a book published by Simon & Schuster in October 2019.
Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke University, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. Following Duke, Mr. Rubenstein graduated in 1973 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review.
From 1973-1975, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in New York with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. From 1975-1976, he served as Chief Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments. From 1977-1981, during the Carter Administration, Mr. Rubenstein was Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy. After his White House service and before co-founding Carlyle, Mr. Rubenstein practiced law in Washington with Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman).
BMO Capital Markets is a full-service financial services provider, offering corporate and investment banking, treasury management, as well as research and advisory services to clients around the world. As a member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE, TSX: BMO), we’re part of one of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America with US$647 billion total assets and approximately 45,000 employees as of October 31, 2019. BMO Financial Group is the 8th largest bank in North America as measured by assets (Bloomberg, as of October 31, 2019).
White & Case is a truly global law firm, uniquely positioned to help our clients achieve their ambitions in today’s G20 world. As a pioneering international law firm, our cross-border experience and diverse team of local, US and English-qualified lawyers consistently deliver superior results for our clients.
Banking is the founding practice of White & Case. Since the opening of our first office in 1901 on Wall Street, our Finance lawyers have been representing banks and other financial institutions, as well as corporates and financial sponsors in their most complex and innovative financing matters.
Our market-leading team advises on all aspects of financings, from leveraged buyouts, acquisition financings, subscription and portfolio level financings and recapitalizations, to asset-based lending and investment-grade financings; as well as workouts, restructurings, debtor-in-possession financings and exit financings.
Sherri Snelson is a partner in White & Case’s Banking group. Over the course of her career, she has acted as lead counsel on hundreds of finance transactions that span a wide array of industries and jurisdictions throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. Sherri’s practice focuses on sponsor-driven acquisitions and fund finance, where she represents borrowers in their most complex finance transactions.
Sherri brings years of experience representing investment funds in connection with fund-level finance transactions, including subscription facilities, NAV facilities, margin loans, fund guarantees and numerous bespoke structures.
NautaDutilh is an international law firm specialising in Luxembourg, Belgian and Dutch law. The firm was founded in 1724 and is one of the largest in the Benelux. More than 400 lawyers, notaries and tax advisers work at the firm’s offices in Luxembourg, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, London and New York.
NautaDutilh Avocats Luxembourg is a key player on the Luxembourg fund finance market providing high quality advice and services. Recommended by the world’s leading legal directories such as Chambers and The Legal 500, our team of 65 lawyers serves a range of national and international clients, from key local players to global market leaders. We serve a wide range of institutional clients, mainly financial institutions, asset managers, large and mid-sized corporates, private equity firms, funds sponsors and IT companies.
We have extensive experience advising on all aspects of investment funds, including fund structuring, regulatory compliance, investor negotiations and fund due diligence.
Ramon Bauza leads the Global Private Equity Derivatives Sales division at Macquarie. Previous to Macquarie, Ramon worked for Deutsche Bank for 11 years in the same capacity. With 21 years’ experience in the derivatives industry, Ramon has compiled an extensive working knowledge of foreign exchange and interest rate derivatives, risk management and regulatory structures, and innovative products and solutions on behalf of both Corporate and Private Equity clients.
Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Ramon worked in Foreign Exchange and Debt Capital Markets Sales at Morgan Stanley and was instructive in structuring PE fund level and portfolio company derivatives hedge programs and solutions. He holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Boston College and is former member of the US Army Special Operations Forces.
Comerica Bank’s Equity Fund Services Group specializes in providing a full range of banking services including capital call lines, subscription lines and loans to general partners for leading venture capital and private equity funds throughout the US and Canada. The group is staffed with experienced professionals who understand the unique needs of funds. Our relationship managers work closely with Comerica Bank product experts who can bring solutions to address treasury management, foreign exchange and custody needs. Learn more at Comerica.com. Member FDIC. Equal Opportunity Lender.
Macquarie Group is a diversified financial group providing clients with asset management and finance, banking, advisory and risk capital solutions across debt, equity and commodities. Founded in 1969, Macquarie employs more than 15,700 people in over 30 markets. At 30 September, 2019, Macquarie had assets under management of over $US380 billion. The diverse nature of our operations combined with a strong capital position and robust risk management framework, has attributed to our 50-year record of unbroken profitability.
Established in 1866, Sidley is a global, full-service law firm with more than 2,000 lawyers practicing on four continents (North America, Europe, Asia and Australia). Sidley’s Global Finance practice comprises lawyers who have pioneered the development of financial instruments for the world’s financial markets. Our team provides a comprehensive range of syndicated and leveraged finance, asset-based debt finance and structured finance legal services for clients and around the world. Sidley also provides a broad range of transactional services including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic transactions, intellectual property and tax, among many others. In addition, we offer regulatory services to clients in virtually every major industry, and many lawyers in our regulatory practices previously held senior positions in government agencies in the U.S., EU and Asia. Our litigation and arbitration practices operate at the trial and appellate levels, and span virtually every area of substantive law.