Practice Areas

Private Equity

Howard Rice’s Private Equity Group represents private equity funds, sponsors and investors. On the sponsor side, Howard Rice’s team of private equity attorneys advises private equity firms on fund formation (including negotiation and preparation of the underlying agreements among the principals), portfolio company transactions and exit strategy planning. On the investor side, we provide investment review and negotiation advice, and have reviewed close to 200 top-tier funds of all types in the past five years. We also represent clients on secondary transactions.

Howard Rice’s diverse practice allows us to provide full service to our private equity clients. In order to help our private equity clients to structure transactions and to maximize value in investments, the attorneys in our Private Equity Group draw upon the firm’s extensive expertise in areas including securities regulation, tax (domestic and international), real estate, emerging growth, mergers and acquisitions, ERISA, bankruptcy/insolvency, executive compensation, finance, hedge funds, intellectual property, investment management, labor and employment, partnership and entity issues, and public companies. Our attorneys also draw on their experience in multiple industries in order to best serve our private equity clients. These industries include: real estate, consumer products, emerging growth, financial services, life sciences, media and entertainment and technology. By combining legal and industry expertise, our attorneys are able to provide smart and practical advice to meet the full range of legal and business needs of our private equity clients. 

Recent Representative Engagements

Fund Formation

  • Bailard Emerging Life Sciences I GP, L.P.
  • Encore Housing Opportunity Fund
  • HMI Capital, LLC
  • Macquarie China Retail Company I Limited
  • Mallesons, Stephen & Jaques
  • McKinley Capital Partners, LLC
  • Real Estate Equity Exchange Inc.
  • Rigel Associates, LLC

Investment Review

  • Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
  • John Muir Foundation
  • MLC Limited, a subsidiary of the National Bank of Australia Limited
  • Regents of the University of California
  • Rosenberg Foundation
  • St. Francis Foundation
  • UCSF Foundation
  • University of California, Berkeley Foundation

Related Practice Groups