Oreste

Oreste Cipolla

Partner
he/him/his
Oreste Cipolla
New York
+1 212 459 7225

Oreste Cipolla is a partner in Goodwin’s Private Equity group. Oreste represents private equity sponsors, venture capital funds, hedge funds, and multinational companies in a wide range of US and cross-border transactions. His practice focuses on leveraged buyouts, dispositions, joint ventures, growth equity investments, and other equity and debt financings. As a lead lawyer on both the buy and sell sides, Oreste advises clients in various industries, including technology, health care, digital infrastructure, for-profit education, gaming, and food and healthy living.

Oreste is a co-leader of Goodwin’s Secondaries Practice, a practice bringing together an international team of lawyers with extensive experience in domestic and global cross-border secondaries transactions. He is also a member of the firm’s Impact and Responsible Investing practice and Food and Healthy Living Practice.

Experience

Oreste’s recent work includes representing:

  • Macquarie Capital (USA), the corporate advisory, capital markets and principal investing arm of Macquarie Group, in a number of minority equity investments and buyouts, including:
    • a joint venture with Prime Data Centers, a data center developer and operator delivering build-to-suit, powered-shell, and turnkey solutions to retail colocation providers, hyperscalers, and large enterprises;
    • follow-on investments in Prime Data Centers;
    • structuring of and investment in the pre-IPO convertible preferred equity financing of Laureate Education, the world’s largest network of higher-education degree-granting institutions, and subsequent IPO
  • Level Equity in a number of growth investments in software and tech-enabled companies in the U.S., Europe and Australia spanning from healthcare to cloud-based services, construction and real estate management, including:
    • preferred equity investment in and following sale of Fusion Risk Management, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based continuity risk management software, contingency planning solutions and consulting services, and the subsequent sale of Fusion Risk Management in a leveraged buyout by another private equity firm;
    • leveraged buyout of and following sale of Ensenta Corporation, a leading provider of cloud-based enterprise deposits, payments and risk mitigation technology and services;
    • preferred equity investment in and following listing via a de-SPAC of Vacasa, LLC, a tech-enabled vacation rental property management company;
    • preferred equity investment in Planet DDS, a leading provider of cloud-based dental practice management and client acquisition software, and subsequent partial exit via a joint venture with Aquiline Partners;
    • preferred equity investment in Ready Education, a leading provider of a software solution aimed at creating a virtual platform tailored to engage students seamlessly between mobile and desktop, and its continued expansion in North America and Europe
  • Danone Manifesto Ventures, the venture capital arm of Danone, the global food and beverage multinational company, in a number of equity and debt investments in food and food tech businesses that are disrupting the world's eating and drinking habits and changing the way companies engage with consumers
  • Primus Capital in a number of acquisitions and dispositions in North America, including:
    • sale of AOD Software, a provider of software solutions to continuing care retirement communities and other long-term care facilities;
    • sale of Vendormate, Inc., a provider of vendor relationship management solutions for healthcare providers
  • Stone Canyon Industries in its leveraged buyout, and subsequent sale of, Fleishman’s Vinegar Company, the world's largest manufacturer and marketer of food-grade industrial vinegar
  • York Capital in its leveraged buyout of Houlihan’s Restaurants, a Kansas-based restaurant company focused on polished casual dining and fine dining
  • SmartStream Technologies, a portfolio company of the Investment Corporation of Dubai, in the formation of a reference data utility joint venture with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley
  • SmartStream Technologies in its acquisition of algorithmics collateral assets from IBM

Professional Experience

Oreste is a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University Law School, where he teaches a course focusing on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and legal transactional strategies.

Credentials

Education

MBA2013

INSEAD Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires

LLM2006

Columbia Law School

LLB1999

Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

(summa cum laude)

Admissions

Bars

  • New York
  • Italy