Led by Barbara Niederkofler in New York, Akin advises sponsors, managers and institutional investors across the private funds lifecycle, combining fund formation execution with fund-linked transactional support and bespoke structuring for liquidity and tax objectives. The team is particularly noted for integrated regulatory coverage spanning U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission-facing issues, Commodity Futures Trading Commission requirements and cross-border regimes including Financial Conduct Authority, with strong capability on Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive matters for United States-headquartered managers. Prakash Mehta splits his time between New York and Washington DC and advises an extensive roster of hedge and credit fund sponsors, while Washington’s Fadi Samman is routinely sought out for his ability to structure complex secondaries transactions. Washington’s Blayne Grady and Dallas-based James Deekan have extensive fund structuring and negotiation experience. Dennis Pereira focuses on private equity and credit fund work from the New York office.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Accolades
Client satisfaction: Lawyer & team quality
Client satisfaction: Sector knowledge
Client satisfaction: NPS ®
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
- ‘Dennis Pereira: Incredibly intelligent and commercial private funds attorney that is able to seamlessly lead complicated cross-jurisdictional structures and transactions involving intricate regulatory, tax and investor negotiation matters.
- ‘Barbara Niederkofler is fantastic. Dennis Pereira is a very effective practitioner. He is technically astute, pragmatic and a clear and concise communicator. Michael DiLernia is very responsive and incisive in his advice.’
- ‘Akin has a good deep bench of subject matter experts. Their practice groups and teams are very effective, co-ordinated and very efficient at servicing and managing client mandates. ’
- ‘Best in class team.’
- ‘Akin's private equity funds practice is unique given the breadth and depth of its offering and experience giving clients and related service providers a full service offering across specialisations and jurisdictions. Of note is the approach Akin takes to large institutional clients where it provides a dedicated and consistent team of senior and experienced attorneys that have a deep knowledge and understanding of the clients business that goes well beyond the law. ’
Key clients
- Crestline Investors
- Monroe Capital LLC
- 400 Capital Management
- TPG Angelo Gordon
- Crayhill Capital Management LP
- Lunate Capital
- BGO
- Invictus Capital Partners, L.P.
- Apollo Global Management
- Crestline Investors
Work highlights
Advised Crestline Investors in the final close of Crestline Direct Lending Fund IV, with $3.5 billion of investable capital across the fund, related vehicles and anticipated leverage.
Advised TPG Angelo Gordon in the closing of its fourth European real estate fund, with $2.27 billion of capital commitments, supplemented by an additional $214 million in co-investment capital for its European real estate strategy.
Advised BGO in connection with the formation of BentallGreenOak Asia IV, its flagship Asia-focused value-add real estate strategy, raising over $5.1 billion in total capital commitments for the fund and co-investment sidecars.
Practice head
Barbara Niederkofler
Other key lawyers
Prakash Mehta; Fadi Samman; Blayne Grady: Jonathan Ross; Dennis Pererira; James Deekan; Michael DiLernia