Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP today announced that Sam Brooks has joined the Firm’s London office as a Partner in the Private Funds Practice.
“As the private credit asset class continues to grow and mature globally, Sam’s deep knowledge and expertise of structuring and raising European private credit funds will be an asset to the Firm,” said Head of European Funds at Simpson Thacher, Gareth Earl. “Throughout his career, Sam has advised on both closed-ended as well as evergreen products targeting both institutional and private wealth capital. Sam’s breadth of credit fund experience will provide valuable bandwidth as our European Funds Practice continues to scale, particularly as evergreen structures become an increasingly important feature of the fund formation landscape.”
Sam advises sponsor clients on a broad range of funds issues, including structuring, terms, investor negotiations and service agreements. Sam also has experience advising on upper-tier mandates, such as management entities and compensation arrangements. Sam joins from another international law firm, where he was a partner.
“Sam is a highly respected lawyer with exceptional experience advising on the formation of European private credit funds and evergreen credit fund structures,” said Simpson Thacher’s European Managing Partner, Wheatly MacNamara. “The addition of Sam, combined with the launch of our Luxembourg funds-focused office earlier this year, demonstrates Simpson Thacher’s commitment to supporting its global client base by providing top-tier legal services across the region.”
In April, funds Partners Jean-Christian Six, Paul Van den Abeele and Yannick Arbaut joined the Firm, to launch the Luxembourg office—the Firm’s second office in continental Europe. Simpson Thacher also recently announced the addition of secondaries transactions Partner Joanne Mak in London.
Simpson Thacher is consistently ranked among the best private funds advisors around the globe by Chambers and Partners, Legal 500, IFLR and many others. The multidisciplinary team provides comprehensive advice to most of the leading public diversified alternative asset managers as well as hundreds of independent firms. The team has advised on the formation of more $10+ billion funds than any other law firm according to Preqin and advised on five of the top 10 private equity funds raised in 2024. It offers deep market knowledge and creative, tailored advice covering the full spectrum of private funds, including buyout, growth/venture capital, credit, secondaries, infrastructure, energy and real estate. The team is also at the vanguard of the industry in providing commercially driven transactional advice on a broad range of fund-related transactions, including GP-stake investments, traditional and synthetic secondaries, structured funds products, continuation vehicles and other deals designed to provide sponsors with flexibility and other deals designed to provide sponsors with flexibility and liquidity.