The Week at Ropes & Gray
❖ Siguler Guff Closes Small Buyout Opportunities Fund IV at $1.575 Billion
❖ Ropes & Gray Announces Six New Counsel
❖ Five Practices Named “Practice Group of the Year” by Law360
❖ Growing Private Equity Interest in Sports Industry
❖ 2019 Drug Pricing Initiatives and 2020 Outlook
❖ Partner Named 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
❖ Blackstone’s ServPro Asset-Backed Securitization Awarded “Deal of the Year”
❖ Associate Appointed to Mass. Supreme Court Committee on Lawyer Well-Being
This week, Ropes & Gray attorneys guided a private equity client on a $1.575 billion fundraising and provided commentary on developments in private equity and health care. The firm also announced six new counsel and earned recognition for legal and pro bono excellence. Here’s a summary of the week’s highlights:
- Private equity investment firm Siguler Guff announced the final close of Small Buyout Opportunities Fund IV. Fund IV was oversubscribed, closing at $1.575 billion after six months of fundraising and exceeding its $1.25 billion target. Ropes & Gray advised Siguler Guff on the fundraising.
- Ropes & Gray announced the promotion of five attorneys to counsel: tax attorney Chris Agnoli, private client group attorney Kevin Willis and asset management attorneys Charles Humphreville, Jessica Marlin and Eli Rosenbaum.
- Law360 honored Ropes & Gray with “Practice Group of the Year” awards for private equity, fund formation, securitizations, health care and white collar. The contest honors firms that “worked on the biggest deals or achieved the biggest wins in the most important cases.”
- An array of drug pricing actions and proposals came out of the Trump administration, the U.S. Congress, gubernatorial offices and state legislatures in 2019. Health care partner Tom Bulleit analyzed last year’s drug pricing activity and the outlook for 2020 in Law360.
- Litigation & enforcement partner Robert Jones was featured as a 2019 “Lawyer of the Year” by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. Robert was honored alongside Oren Sellstrom of Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR) for their role in Huot v. City of Lowell, a landmark federal Voting Rights Act case brought pro bono by Ropes & Gray and LCR.
- The International Finance Review named The Blackstone Group’s $555 million ServPro securitization as its “Asset-Backed Securitization Deal of the Year.” A Ropes & Gray team advised Blackstone on the transaction.
- The justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced the formation of a Standing Committee on Lawyer Well-Being, naming private capital transactions associate Gavin Alexander as one of the committee’s 15 members. Gavin previously served as co-chair of the Massachusetts LGBTQ Bar Association and on the board of directors of the National LGBT Bar Association. He currently serves on the Boston Bar Association’s Diversity & Inclusion Section Steering Committee.
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