Kelvin L. Thomas

Associate

Kelvin L. Thomas

Associate

Kelvin Thomas helps private investment sponsors with all aspects of fund formation, including capital raising, marketing, preparing offering documents, and drafting organizational documents. He also counsels clients on regulatory, compliance, and operational issues during both an active fund raise and the operational stage, including with respect to sponsor-carried interest and management company arrangements. Kel’s sponsor clients include established and emerging private equity, venture capital, growth equity, credit, and fund-of-funds sponsors.

Kel’s experience includes advising institutional investors, including endowments, family offices, governmental plans, fund-of-funds, and corporations, on their private capital investment activity. He also advises private fund sponsors, buyers, and sellers in secondary transactions. Kel is a member of the firm’s Fund Formation & Investment Management Practice.

Before joining Foley, Kel was a senior counsel on the Investment Law Team of the Hartford Investment Management Company where he provided legal advice in several asset classes such as private equity, private placement offerings, real estate commercial mortgage loans, joint venture real estate equity deals, and senior loans.

Prior to law school, Kel served as an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army from 2006-2011. Later, he also served in the Connecticut National Guard from 2011-2015. Captain Thomas was an Airborne logistics officer stationed at Ft. Bragg, NC, for the majority of his active-duty career. During his career, he held positions such as:

  • Company Executive Officer of 647th Quartermaster Company (Heavy Drop – Aerial Equipment Supply)
  • Senior Battalion Logistics Officer for 7th Transportation Battalion
  • Logistics Officer-in-Charge for Provincial Reconstruction Team Kapisa in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan
  • Chief of Operations for 82nd Airborne Sustainment Brigade battle desk in Bagram, Afghanistan
  • Assistant Operations Officer for 82nd Airborne Sustainment Brigade

Representative Experience

  • Simultaneously closed two global secondaries equity funds totaling over a combined US$3bn wherein the client invested US $100m in each fund, spread across multiple investment entities. The funds purchase LP interests in existing funds at different life cycles and generate quick returns for our investors to meet Net Investment Income (NII) goals.
  • Represented institutional clients’ investment in US $1.2bn project financing private placement offering issued by a professional sports team for stadium construction on the West Coast.

Awards and Recognition

  • Hartford Business Journal’s 40 Under Forty (2021)
  • Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Hartford’s Finest, Class of 2019

Affiliations

  • Member of American Bar Association
  • Member of Massachusetts Bar Association
  • Member of Connecticut Bar Association
  • Member of George C. Crawford Black Bar Association

Community Involvement

  • Board chair for Hartford Equity in Academics Team
  • Member of MetroHartford Alliance Racial Equity & Economic Development Committee
  • Former commissioner on City of Hartford Planning & Zoning Commission (2020-2021)
  • Former chair of Hartford Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs
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