Kate Ashton is of counsel in the firm’s London office, after practicing for many years as a partner. Dual-qualified in England and the United States, Ms. Ashton is a former leader of the firm’s Private Fund Transactions Group. She regularly counseled investors on private fund restructurings, recapitalisations and tender offers; listed fund transactions; purchases and sales of portfolios of LP interests; and domestic and cross-border co-investment transactions. Ms. Ashton is recommended by IFLR1000, which named her in its “Women Leaders 2021” list. She is also recommended in The Legal 500 UK (2026) and Chambers UK (2026) for her prowess in Private Equity and in particular, for her work on secondaries transactions. She has also been lauded as “an excellent operator” and “highly rated” who “has decades of experience in the secondary market and is a professional and commercial lawyer, offering excellent advice.”
Beyond fund-related transactional experience, Ms. Ashton’s broadly international practice includes corporate finance, debt and equity offerings and financial restructurings. Ms. Ashton served as the Co-Chair of the Capital Markets Forum of the International Bar Association and is a former trustee of the American College of Investment Counsel.
Ms. Ashton is a frequent author and speaker on topics relating to the alternative asset and secondaries market. Selected publications include “FDI scrutiny of private equity secondary deals on the rise,” Westlaw Today (June, 2024) and “How co-investors are adjusting to an unsettled market,” Private Equity International (October, 2023). Selected speaking engagements include “Continuation Funds – The Only Way Is Up?,” BVCA Secondaries Roundtable (February, 2023).
Ms. Ashton graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and from Harvard Law School. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Royal British Society of Sculptors and of the American Trust for the British Library and is active in a number of other cultural and pro bono organisations. Ms. Ashton co-founded the Lawyers Volunteering for the Arts pro bono initiative in London, through which a consortium of law firms provides pro bono legal advice to low-income arts and cultural organisations in the United Kingdom.