Debevoise’s Asset Management practice has handled major asset management M&A transactions, counseled key industry players on critical regulatory challenges and become a trusted advisor to all manner of asset management clients through a period of tumultuous change.
Gregory V. Gooding
William D. Regner
Debevoise Partners Robert B. Kaplan and Julie M. Riewe Discuss SEC Exam Trends in the Inaugural “Chat with the Chiefs” Webcast
The team is very sophisticated on complex negotiations and run an unimpeachable process.
The firm is “phenomenal” and has “the horsepower, expertise, knowledge and bandwidth to handle deals.”
Very client-centric and very commercial; it has a one-team mentality.
—Chambers USA, 2020-2022
User-friendly attorneys who are both book-smart and street-smart.
They have a strong commercial perspective, deep industry expertise and provide excellent customer service.
—The Legal 500 US, 2021-2022
The firm’s Asset Management practice comprises lawyers from each of the firm’s major practice areas. The team regularly represents buyers and sellers across a broad spectrum of transactions in the asset management industry, including public and private acquisitions by asset management companies, securities firms, private equity groups, insurance companies, domestic and foreign banks and management groups. Debevoise lawyers are “[e]xtraordinarily helpful, very knowledgeable and very creative,” according to Chambers USA.
International transactions have been a particular focus of the Debevoise asset management M&A practice, which has recently represented purchasers of investment management firms located in an array of countries and jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. With offices in London, Frankfurt, Paris, Luxembourg, Hong Kong and Shanghai, and a network of collaborative counsel around the world, Debevoise has the cross-border and local law capabilities to handle the most complex transactions.
The firm’s work on behalf of asset management firms is an integral part of Debevoise’s market-leading Investment Management practice, which regularly establishes branch and subsidiary offices for advisers, forms and negotiates international advisory joint ventures, handles acquisitions of investment advisers and investment managers around the world, and advises on all aspects of the formation of, and investments in, private equity funds.
During the past 25 years, the firm has been involved as counsel to sponsors of, or investors in, hundreds of private equity funds pursuing a wide variety of investment strategies and representing a significant portion of capital raised by all private equity funds during this period.
Further, the firm’s Litigation Department includes the former Co-Chief of the Asset Management Unit of the SEC Division of Enforcement. The practice’s litigators, as well as its corporate lawyers, regularly advise a broad range of clients in the asset management industry on their most complex and challenging regulatory matters, both in the U.S. and internationally.
Illustrating the firm’s top-tier multidisciplinary capabilities, a client commented in Chambers USA that “[t]hey have your back, will go the extra mile and will do everything to make you succeed,” and are “[e]xtraordinarily helpful, very knowledgeable and very creative.”