Practices

Private Equity

Why Cooley

Cooley's private equity & buyout practice is focused on representing private equity funds, management groups, consortiums, family offices, lenders and portfolio companies on the full spectrum of transactions:

  • Leveraged buyouts
  • Take-privates
  • Management buy-outs
  • Public company investments
  • Spin-offs and roll-ups
  • Platform acquisitions
  • Buy and build transactions
  • Takeovers
  • Growth capital
  • Syndicated divested equity transactions
  • Leveraged recapitalizations
  • Secondary equity transactions
  • Debt transactions
  • Secondary debt purchases
  • “Loan to own” transactions
  • Distressed transactions
  • Founder liquidity transactions
  • Royalty purchases

The group’s lawyers have substantial experience in many industries, including technology, healthcare and several other high-growth industries. Cooley’s unrivaled depth of knowledge within the dynamic technology sector affords us a deeper understanding of targets’ technology, business models, intellectual property, operational challenges, regulatory challenges and growth strategies.

In addition to our ability to structure and execute on transactions, we also have a leading practice advising equity sponsors and management groups in other areas, including fund formation, employment, compensation and benefits, tax and other general corporate matters. This team remains in place throughout the transaction and the ongoing representation of the portfolio company. This integrated team approach provides our clients with access to all relevant resources necessary to structure, negotiate and complete buyout transactions. We pride ourselves on our ability to help our clients realize their objectives in these types of transactions. 

Areas of Practice

  • Represent private equity funds, management groups, consortiums, family offices, lenders and portfolio companies in the full spectrum of private equity transactions
  • Provide operational and strategic counsel to portfolio companies
  • Offer a dedicated debt finance team to advise private equity sponsors and their portfolio companies
  • Advise on follow-on acquisitions through our M&A and PE transactional teams
  • Advise on liquidity through M&A/PE and capital markets teams
  • Counsel on current market conditions, including terms and participants, to a degree not possible without deep and constant interaction

Additional Strengths

  • 65+ private equity and growth equity sponsor clients
  • Primary fund counsel to 750+ venture, growth and private equity fund organizations
  • Represent 6,000+ private company clients from industries including software, adtech, edtech, big data, digital media, fintech, retail, food & beverage, cleantech, healthcare, medtech, ehealth and biotech
  • Represent 35% of the US-based unicorns (CB Insights)
  • IPOs: Ranked #1 for venture-capital backed IPOs for the last decade
  • M&A deals: 1,000+ M&A transactions since 2016, with an aggregate value of more than $345 billion