Winston & Strawn’s private equity attorneys provide strategic advice and legal counsel to middle-market private equity funds, hedge funds, family offices, real estate funds, alternative asset managers, portfolio companies, and institutional investors. We have one of the broadest and most active national middle-market private equity practices in the U.S.

Our team delivers value throughout each phase of the investment life cycle―from deal sourcing, platform transactions, acquisition financing and tax structuring, to add-on acquisitions, portfolio company management and liquidity transactions.

Our team regularly advises financial sponsors on the following types of transactions:

• Leveraged buyouts / platform acquisitions
• Take-private transactions
• Growth equity and minority recapitalizations
• Add-on acquisitions for portfolio companies
• Distressed acquisitions, including 363 transactions
• Portfolio company matters
• Liquidity events / exits, including initial public offerings

Our private equity team is complemented by our finance practice, which is consistently recognized as an industry leader in terms of number and volume of deals closed. We have extensive experience representing financial sponsors and their portfolio companies in financing transactions, including secured facilities for acquisitions and ongoing working capital needs.

PORTFOLIO COMPANY REPRESENTATION

Winston & Strawn serves as outside general counsel to a wide range of portfolio companies and their management teams. We understand the strategic and operational needs of these companies and have developed a wide range of service delivery models that enable our clients to better manage their legal costs.

Representation of portfolio companies requires experienced counsel who understand the business of our clients and who will be there to answer questions that arise every day. Our lawyers have the commercial judgment, real-world experience, and sophistication to guide the management teams and boards of portfolio companies through a variety of legal and business challenges, including corporate finance, intellectual property matters, employee benefits, and other human resource and workforce-related issues.