A transactional asset management partner, Adam Dobson represents asset managers and institutional investors with respect to their direct, secondary and co-investment programs, as well as bespoke transactions. Adam represents sovereign wealth funds and government pension plans based in Europe, Canada, Asia and Africa as they deploy capital in a range of transactions across asset classes and geographies.
Adam regularly represents clients in GP-led fund recapitalizations, preferred equity financings and other secondary transactions. He works with a team that closed more than 400 secondaries transactions worth over $200 billion in 2024. Adam also advises clients with respect to their direct investments and co-investments around the world, including transactions involving both public and private securities. In addition, Adam counsels clients on Section 13 and Section 16 reporting compliance and proxy contests.
Adam is especially skilled in navigating legally complex transactions and brings a commercial, but creative approach to resolving thorny issues. With experience across different types of funds transactions, including fund restructurings, preferred equity financings and asset manager M&A, Adam is able to offer a broad perspective when advising clients. Prior to joining the firm, Adam was an assistant attorney general in the Environmental Protection Bureau of the New York Attorney General's Office.
Working with diverse teams and mentoring junior lawyers is very important to Adam. Before law school, Adam taught children in Tanzania and Mexico, and founded a small nonprofit that led educational trips for Tanzanian students to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and visit national parks.
Experience
- Advised a Canadian sovereign wealth fund on its purchase of a $1.5b portfolio of fund interests (across nearly 100 funds).
- Advised a large U.S. insurance company on its sale of over $1.5b of private equity and real estate fund interests in six transactions.
- Represented an African sovereign investor in its purchase of a portfolio of fund interests from a European bank.
- Advises sovereign wealth funds, university endowments and institutional investors in structuring, negotiation and documentation of all stages of secondary transactions, tender offers, structured investments and co-investments ranging in size from several million to several billion dollars.
- Advises U.S. and non-U.S. investment advisors in offering of securities in connection with diverse fund strategies and compliance with U.S., UK and EU regulatory regimes.
- Advises registered funds in debt offerings.
- Advises fund sponsors in seed funding and joint venture arrangements.
- Advises large hedge fund with respect to the Lehman Brothers and MF Global insolvency proceedings and with respect to special situations investments globally.