Hedge Funds and Other Investment Firms

Overview

Friedman Kaplan has deep experience representing and counseling hedge funds and other investment firms, and their principals and employees, in important transactions and other legal and commercial matters.  These clients come to us when they are seeking sophisticated, practical advice from a law firm that understands their business and the legal environment in which they operate. Like our clients, Friedman Kaplan is strategic, forward-looking, and able to respond to real-time demands with practical solutions in a fast-paced setting.

We have worked with a range of funds, including many industry leaders, and have represented funds from the start-up phase and throughout their entire life-cycle. We advise on the structuring of arrangements among members of general partner and management company entities, relations with limited partners, securities and employment matters, other legal and compliance issues including with respect to third-party research providers and other research practices, internal investigations, and public-market as well as private investments in the U.S. and abroad.

Our practice in this area has earned us the respect of many principals of these funds, who have also retained us to represent them individually and on behalf of their family offices. We have advised these clients on fund-related matters, including succession and employment issues, as well as on personal matters such as investments, real property and other asset purchases in the U.S. and foreign jurisdictions, private credit facilities, as well as employment of personal staff and other personal planning considerations.

Selected Experience

• We represented a private equity fund in a substantial number of investments and exit transactions in the People’s Republic of China, including in connection with structuring of transactions on the basis of PRC and U.S. legal and tax requirements.
• We have represented leading investment funds in making private equity investments in prominent start-up companies.
• We have advised major hedge funds with respect to their relationships with expert networks and other third-party research providers, including preparation and negotiation of contract terms, compliance review of proposed research projects and advice as to “material non-public information” considerations in research consultations and reports.
• We have worked with counsel in India, Japan, Europe, Latin America and other foreign jurisdictions in representing clients in private and public market investment transactions and in regulatory filings in connection therewith.
• We have represented hedge funds, private equity funds and other investment funds in developing, negotiating and documenting employment and compensation arrangements for co-founders, principals and other key employees as well as in severance and other termination arrangements for such personnel.
• We have worked with several leading hedge funds in reviewing and streamlining complex incentive allocation and withdrawal provisions in fund documentation.
• We represented an investment fund in the investigation and analysis of a significant expense allocation arrangement, and the successful renegotiation and modification of the arrangement.
• We represented the principals of an investment firm in the firm’s start-up phase, including in working out their shareholder/employment arrangements and negotiating financial/profit-sharing terms with a financial institution providing seed capital.
• We represented the principal of a hedge fund in negotiating the termination of a burdensome seeding arrangement with a larger firm that had been entered into when the fund was launched.
• We advised an incoming director of one of the largest hedge funds in the country with respect to his legal duties as a hedge fund director, as well as the potential legal liabilities he could incur.