Buyouts + Acquisitions

In the face of a competitive marketplace, elite private equity firms expect counsel with extensive experience and a stable of blue chip relationships. That’s why private equity firms have been entrusting their deals to Goodwin for decades. We believe our position to be unique within BigLaw given the collaboration of our private equity team with our robust life sciences, technology and healthcare practices. With our largest and strongest practices working together, Goodwin is exceptionally suited to address whatever the future brings.

Our Private Equity team ranks as one of the top in the United States, and we are on a trajectory of rapid ascent, both in the U.S. and abroad. The group is a market leader in the expansive middle market sector, having earned a reputation for notable buyouts, growth equity deals and growth company representations in key sectors such as technology, healthcare, financial and business services, consumer and manufacturing. And with the breakneck pace of technology disrupting industries around the world, we are uniquely positioned to partner with our clients and embrace the promise and potential of innovation.

Our team of multilingual lawyers, qualified in the PRC, Hong Kong, and the U.S., offers skilled cross-border legal advice within a broad range of sectors and practice areas. Our comprehensive Hong Kong corporate practice is focused on private equity, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital, fund formation, joint ventures and strategic transactions. We have been recognized as a leading law firm in India by the India Business Journal since 2008 and we have received numerous “Deals of the Year” awards by the China Business Law Journal. We are also ranked for outstanding corporate/M&A expertise in India and China by Chambers Global.

Private equity investors are becoming increasingly international in their focus, and global competition over premium investments is fierce. Goodwin’s accomplished Private Equity team has a broad range of experience in advising PE and venture capital funds, mezzanine providers, debt funds and banks on private equity transactions worldwide. Having worked together for a number of years, our team has now been supplemented by dedicated high profile PE and leveraged finance lawyers in our Frankfurt office, enabling us to provide high quality services across jurisdictions and disciplines to international as well as domestic financial investors and financing parties.

More broadly, Goodwin has assembled a global team that we believe is unique in BigLaw – a team that is equally proficient in advising the innovators and the investors across the private equity, technology, healthcare and life sciences sectors. With our largest and strongest practices working together, Goodwin is exceptionally suited to address whatever the future brings.

Together, we have extensive experience spanning all areas of private equity and corporate M+A, with an emphasis on middle market private transactions. Our lawyers represent early through to late stage investors and companies, as well as lenders and financial institutions, covering the full life cycle of their investments and financings from acquisition to exit.

As private equity investors search for opportunities in an increasingly crowded market, Europe has emerged as a fertile environment. The pace of European deal making has increased in recent years and months, and France in particular has enjoyed a rise in investment and buyout activity, becoming a leading destination for private equity investments on the continent.

In Paris, Goodwin is an undisputed leader in the private equity market, advising major industrial groups, family-owned companies, investment funds, startups, credit institutions, debt providers and management teams on the full spectrum of deal types including buyouts, growth equity investments, minority and co-investments, and other types of private equity transactions.

The team excels in domestic and cross-border mandates and has deep experience handling complex, large-scale transactions. 

As such we are routinely involved in the most strategic mid-market and upper mid-market transactions. We have a proven track record of advising market-leading names on market-shaping deals in the transactional space in France.

Our practice also includes specialist lawyers from tax, debt finance, restructuring and other fields, all working together on private equity transactions.

As an integral part of the firm’s global Private Equity practice, we are able to offer a global-standard French, European and U.S. private equity counsel required by the leading players in this sector. 

Goodwin’s greater China team of multilingual lawyers qualified in the PRC, UK, Hong Kong, and the U.S. offers skilled cross-border legal advice within a broad range of sectors and practice areas.

Our comprehensive China practice is focused on capital markets and securities (U.S. listings, GEM and H-shares or capital raisings), mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic transactions, private equity, venture capital, fund formation, hospitality and real estate, and regulatory compliance. With the breakneck pace of technology disrupting industries around the world, we partner with our clients and embrace the promise and potential of innovation to make a lasting impact. More broadly, Goodwin has a global team that we believe is unique in BigLaw – a team that is equally proficient in advising the innovators and the investors across the private equity, technology, real estate, healthcare and life sciences sectors.

Goodwin’s unique combination of deep experience serving both the innovators and investors in a rapidly-changing, technology-driven economy sets us apart. We partner with clients to embrace the promise and potential of innovation to make a lasting impact. Our Debt Finance practice represents borrowers, private equity sponsors and lenders in a broad range of financing transactions. Our Debt Finance lawyers work closely with the firm's Private Equity, Technology Companies, Capital Markets, and Financial Restructuring groups structuring, negotiating and documenting domestic and cross-border debt financing arrangements, including secured and unsecured senior, mezzanine and subordinated debt facilities, acquisition-financing transactions, working capital facilities, as well as loan workouts and restructurings.

On the borrower side, Goodwin represents private equity firms and their portfolio companies, leading public and private companies and start-ups in a wide variety of business industries. On the lender side, Goodwin’s clients include domestic and international banks, insurance and finance companies, mezzanine lenders, business development companies and other institutional investors.

Technology has permeated the modern age and influences nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Long-standing financial services institutions are a prime example of how far the technological revolution has reached. Brick and mortar financial institutions are facing new disruptive competitors in everything ranging from mobile and peer-to-peer payments to online banking and lending. Fintech companies are receiving record high investments across the globe and the market is thriving at an unparalleled pace. With new regulatory considerations developing in tandem, it is crucial for a successful Fintech company to have expert legal counsel that is fully apprised of all the newest developments, such as GDPR in Europe, and how they affect the industry.

Succeeding in the life sciences industry is as much about strategy and execution as it is about research and development. And with the breakneck pace of technology disrupting industries on a global scale, Goodwin’s depth of experience not only in the life sciences space, but also in collaboration with our technology, healthcare, real estate and private equity lawyers, makes our team exceptionally suited to address whatever the future brings. We partner with clients to embrace the promise and potential of innovation to make a profound and lasting impact.

Goodwin’s fully integrated, globally recognized destination life sciences practice is dedicated to serving the needs of innovators and investors working collaboratively to improve patients' lives. Our team of more than 150 lawyers is devoted to life sciences companies across the entire company lifecycle, and team members are strategically located across the major life sciences hubs in the U.S., Europe and Asia.

As a growing technology company, your prospects are exciting and your challenges are unique – from securing funding, protecting IP, and navigating the regulatory environment, to differentiating yourself in the marketplace, managing customer acquisition and scaling your business. We get it. Our dedicated team brings a comprehensive, coordinated approach that interconnects business, new technologies and the law. Our depth of experience in the private equity space along with our technology, healthcare and life sciences lawyers makes Goodwin uniquely suited to harness the breakneck pace of technology. We partner with clients to embrace the promise and potential of innovation to make a profound and lasting impact.