W. Christian Vareika

A senior associate in the firm’s alternative asset opportunities practice, Christian routinely represents some of the world’s largest institutional investors, including sovereign investors, pension funds, secondary buyers and other large investors, as they deploy capital. He regularly advises clients in connection with a range of transactions around the world and across asset classes, including secondary transactions, GP-led recapitalizations, secondary purchases and sales and other structured liquidity transactions, co-investments, direct investments and joint ventures.

As part of Ropes & Gray’s secondary buyer practice, which represents 10 of the top 15 secondary buyers globally, Christian has advised lead investors – including co-leads and lead investor syndicates – in some of the largest and most complex GP-led recapitalization transactions in the market in recent years. In 2022, the team closed more than 450 secondaries transactions worth over $146 billion.

Christian also has experience with both buy- and sell-side private equity M&A transactions, as well as ongoing portfolio company matters, and has advised private fund sponsors on both open- and closed-end fund formation and fundraising, as well as ongoing governance and operational issues.

Christian also maintains a pro bono practice, including representing an asylum seeker and case screening review for the Innocence Project.

During law school, Christian served as an Executive Articles Editor of the Boston College Law Review and as a Judiciary Fellow with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime & Terrorism in Washington, D.C. Prior to law school, Christian held a number of positions in the Office of the Governor of Rhode Island, his home state, including Chief Speechwriter, Deputy Communications Director, and Special Assistant to the Governor. He also served as campaign coordinator for a successful gubernatorial campaign.

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