Private Equity & Venture Capital
Foley’s experienced Private Equity & Venture Capital attorneys partner with you to organize, capitalize, and manage your fund, and help you maximize your returns on your investments.
Our Private Equity & Venture Capital attorneys have represented venture investors and buyout groups for nearly half a century. We are focused on the full range of public and private debt and equity vehicles and their investment activities, bringing a sophisticated and efficient approach to structuring funds and their investments. Our comprehensive understanding of the market, trends, and issues positions us as integral members of your team, working collaboratively to achieve your objectives.
We have worked with countless private equity and venture capital funds on every aspect of the fund life cycle, providing the full range of legal services, including intellectual property, employee benefits, tax, finance, real estate, and corporate transactions. Although we are trained as lawyers, we also are experienced entrepreneurs who work with you as true partners — even as investors, at times — as you create your fund, raise capital, form strategic alliances, protect your intellectual property, analyze opportunities, execute deals, and carry out your exit strategy.
Whether you are a new fund manager or an experienced sponsor, we provide the entire range of your fund’s legal needs, including formation, fund administration, and transactional and regulatory matters. From business, securities, tax, and ERISA issues to IP, banking, communication, insolvency, and employment concerns, we will work with you to attract investors, forge strategic alliances, retain and incentivize key employees, comply with securities laws, minimize tax exposure, and carry out your exit strategy. We have represented all kinds of funds, including private equity funds, fund-of-funds, angel funds, early- and late-stage venture capital funds, mezzanine funds, hedge funds, turnaround and distressed debt funds, and employee co-investment funds.
Fund Sponsors: We represent fund sponsors in the creation and fundraising efforts of a wide variety of fund types and sizes, including geographically focused and international fund vehicles; emerging managers; and experienced sponsors who have created multiple funds. We are at the forefront of issues such as preferred return, carry terms and calculations, additional public disclosure of fund results, management fee variables, and changes in clawbacks, among others. We have honed our experience in developing co-investment vehicles to support a fund’s overall objectives, as well as the strategic partners’ interests. Our experience ranges from complex investment programs to tax and estate planning investment structures for fund principals, officers, and employees, with the ultimate goal of maximizing returns.
Fund Investors: Our Private Equity & Venture Capital attorneys serve a wide array of investor clients such as:
- Private and government pension plans
- Financial institutions
- University pension funds
- Foreign entities and individuals
- Insurance companies
- Religious and charitable organizations
- High-net-worth individuals
- Family offices
Our status as one of the preeminent law firms in securities law, compliance, corporate governance, and government relations enables us to advise you on a wide range of increasingly complex regulatory, tax, and other legal issues that affect private funds and their sponsors and investors.
We regularly advise clients on the most complex issues arising under the Securities Act, Securities Exchange Act, and Commodity Exchange Act; the Investment Advisers Act and Investment Company Act; rules of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASDAQ, and other self-regulatory bodies; and state securities laws.
Our investment management practice provides ongoing counsel on compliance issues affecting investment advisors, broker-dealers, and commodity pools, including ERISA, privacy regulations, Sarbanes-Oxley, and USA PATRIOT Act.
We understand the regulatory environment affecting our fund clients’ limited partners, as well as their target investments. Our Tax attorneys are deeply versed in the latest U.S. and international fund formation techniques and vehicles; innovative equity structures for portfolio company founders and management teams; the most efficient merger and acquisition techniques; and the “lore” — as well as the law — of creative, but conservative, tax strategies. Our ERISA lawyers are up to date on the concerns of fund investors from for-profit and non-profit spheres and are adept at integrating these requirements into appropriate fund structures. Most important, all of our Tax and ERISA attorneys understand the importance of balancing complex and creative structuring ideas with pragmatic business needs. They put business objectives first and foremost in their planning of optimal fund vehicles and transactional structures.