Ciara Stratford joined Ropes & Gray in 2019 and is an associate in the private equity transaction group. Prior to joining Ropes & Gray, Ciara was an associate in the private equity team of the London office of another large international law firm. Since joining Ropes & Gray, Ciara has spent 12 months on secondment in the firm’s New York office.
Ciara has a broad range of domestic and cross-border experience advising clients on general corporate, venture capital and private equity transactions. Ciara has particular experience acting for private equity investors, their portfolio companies and management teams in relation to acquisitions, disposals, investments and restructurings.
Prior to joining the firm, Ciara has been seconded to Bank of America Merrill Lynch within its EUME investment banking team.
Experience
- Advised NielsenIQ, a portfolio company of Advent International, on the sale of CPS GfK to YouGov
- Advised Vision Ridge Partners and Havila Holding on the sale of Fjord1, Norway’s largest ferry operator, to DIF Capital Partners and EDF Invest
- Advised Bridgepoint on:
- its acquisition of Kerv Group, a next generation cloud and digital transformation services provider
- its acquisition of Monica Vinader Limited, an award-winning British demi-fine luxury jewellery brand
- its investment in digital marketing agency IDHL
- its investment in Matrix SCM, a leading managed service provider for the outsourced hiring and management of temporary local government staff in the UK
- Advised AEA Investors on the sale of LoneStar Group, a global market leader of customised high-performance components serving the power generation markets
- Advised New Mountain Capital and its portfolio company Datavant on:
- the acquisition of the Mirador Analytics group, a leading HIPAA Expert Determination provider
- the acquisition of health technology infrastructure company Convenet Ltd
- Advised Cove Hill Partners on the sale of LiveAuctioneers to Auction Technology Group plc, which constituted a Class 1 Transaction under UKLA rules
- Acted for the lead investor in connection with its Series A investment in BitBio, a synthetic biology company, and the subsequent series B investment round
- Advised Alibaba on the $1.1bn joint venture with Richemont and Farfetch, an online luxury fashion retail platform
- Advised Intermediate Capital Group in connection with:
- its investment in Travel Chapter, one of the UK’s leading holiday rental platforms, supporting the sale of the company to its management team from private equity firm ECI Partners
- the acquisition of a minority stake in Irish software firm Globoforce Ltd (t/a Workhuman)
- the sale of its minority interest in Blackrock Expert Services Group, a disputes and expert advisory specialist firm, as part of the broader sale of the entire shareholding of Blackrock to Duff & Phelps
- Advised Xerox on its acquisition of Altodigital, one of the largest suppliers of office technology in the UK
- Acted for an executive director and investor of Urban Real Estate Partners, a specialist logistics and light industrial asset management platform, on the sale and equity restructuring of a c. €1.2 billion, 40-property pan-European logistics portfolio involving a major US private equity real estate fund and investment bank
- Advised PG Impact Investments in relation to its senior and mezzanine financing to Tugende, a Ugandan based provider of lease-to-own financing to the financially excluded
- Advised Averna Capital on its investment in ClimateCare, a leading profit with purpose environmental and social impact company headquartered in Oxford, UK