Private Equity

Cleary Gottlieb has been a private equity pioneer since the industry’s beginnings and across multiple market cycles.

We know and understand the world of private equity. We have acted for decades as trusted advisers to the world’s leading private equity firms and their portfolio companies on some of the largest and most complex private equity transactions. Our support and advice are responsive, commercially astute, and practical, helping our clients navigate an increasingly complex and competitive transactional landscape.

We advise a variety of private equity sponsors, sovereign wealth funds, pensions funds, family offices, and other financial investors, giving us exposure to the latest market practice and developments in transactional technology across the globe.

Our private equity practice draws on the expertise of our private funds team to support our clients throughout the full life cycle of a fund, bringing together specialist knowledge, skill and deep sector expertise in fund formation and fund management, co-investment structures, and fund liquidity strategies. Our clients turn to us for all of their transactional needs, including growth equity, leveraged buyouts, hybrid capital solutions, and strategic investments (and the financing solutions for those deals), as well as portfolio company matters and exits.

Our Private Equity Team

• We are a truly global private equity practice. With over 200 lawyers dedicated to private equity transactional work across the world, we have a strong and deep bench of lawyers operating seamlessly across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Latin America.
• Our fully integrated private equity practice includes lawyers from our mergers and acquisitions, debt finance, private funds, antitrust, foreign direct investment and regulatory, tax, employee benefits & ERISA, real estate, and capital markets practices, ensuring private equity clients have the legal support necessary to thrive at every level – whether at the fund level, at the sponsor level, at the deal level or at the portfolio company level.
• We work as an interdisciplinary team who know each other personally across practices and geographies, fostering unmatched collaboration to deliver innovative solutions and exceptional transaction execution.
• The quality of our offering means that we embrace complexity. All of our private equity projects are partner-led and staffed with the right team members from across our network, giving our clients access to deep cross-practice expertise.

Our Commitment to Clients

• First and foremost, we value our clients and our client relationships. We understand that every client is unique and always tailor our approach in every private equity transaction to the client’s needs and goals.
• The longevity of our client relationships, which for many clients spans decades, attests to our consistent quality, unrelenting focus on client service and unwavering commitment to protecting and advancing our private equity clients’ interests.