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Private Funds

Our preeminent Private Funds Practice has represented private funds clients for over 40 years, playing a prominent role in the development of the private funds industry and earning us a unique leadership role in the sector. Working closely with lawyers in the Firm’s other practice areas, our team provides comprehensive advice to many of the world’s best-known institutional alternative asset managers, as well as smaller first-time funds and independent boutiques.

Through our representation of a diverse group of sponsors, we have established a track record for adding value to our clients’ fundraisings and have developed an acute understanding of custom and practice in the private funds marketplace. That, in turn, allows us to provide clients with the commercially driven, practical advice that they require. We represent sponsors and sophisticated investors in:

  • Private equity funds
  • Hedge funds
  • Real estate funds
  • Energy/infrastructure funds
  • Credit funds (including mezzanine, senior loan and distressed)
  • Secondary funds
  • Venture capital funds
  • Fund-of-funds
  • Other types of funds pursuing “alternative investment” strategies

In addition, we routinely structure our clients’ internal arrangements and employee investment arrangements. We also have substantial experience in M&A transactions involving private investment firms, initial public offerings of alternative asset managers, credit facilities for funds and their managers and secondary transfers of private fund investments. With dedicated fund formation teams in New York, London, Hong Kong, Palo Alto, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Houston, Simpson Thacher has an unsurpassed breadth of experience in organizing private funds of all types around the globe. We offer U.S. and English law capability in advising sponsors of private funds throughout the world.

#1 Globally
#1 in the U.S., the U.K., Asia and globally (Chambers)

Largest Fundraisings

Simpson Thacher acted as sponsor counsel on many of the largest private equity fundraisings launched in the U.S. and Europe since 2009, including:

Fund Total Commitments
Blackstone Real Estate Partners IX $20 billion
CVC Capital Partners VII €16 billion
Blackstone Capital Partners VII $18 billion
Silver Lake Partners V
$15 billion
Seventh Cinven Fund €10 billion
Platinum Equity Capital Partners V $10 billion
EQT Infrastructure IV  €9 billion
Apax IX $9 billion
Carlyle Europe Partners V  €6.4 billion
New Mountain Partners V $6.15 billion 
Affinity Asia Pacific Fund V $6 billion
Digital Colony Fund  $4.05 billion
Technology Crossover Ventures X  $3 billion
Macquarie Infrastructure Partners III $3 billion
Morgan Stanley’s North Haven Real Estate Fund IX Global $2.7 billion
KKR Real Estate Partners Americas II $2 billion

$15.8 billion
$15.8 billion
“They were terrific, hands down fantastic, incredibly well organised, great at project management, very commercial and became part of the in house team.”
Chambers UK (quoting a client)

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        Spotlight on
        Law360 Profiles Simpson Thacher as a Fund Formation Group of the Year
        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher Advises on Three Largest Private Equity Funds Raised in 2021, per PEI
        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher Advises on the Two Largest Private Equity Funds of 2021, per Law360
        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher’s Private Equity Team Named New York Law Journal “Dealmaker of the Year”
        Spotlight on
        Simpson Thacher Advised on Five of the Top Ten Largest Private Equity Funds Post-GFC