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Richard Cole

Investment Funds Counsel, London

“I am an investment funds lawyer with extensive experience in advising on a broad range of private investment funds, fund-like joint ventures, and the establishment and operation of fund managers. I am committed to applying thorough technical knowledge to provide practical and commercial solutions to my clients’ most complex legal issues.”

Overview

Professional experience

Education and qualifications

Overview

Richard is a Counsel in our investment funds practice and specialises in advising on the establishment, operation and marketing of institutional and alternative investment funds and fund-like structures with a wide variety of strategies and asset classes, both offshore and onshore; and advising in relation to asset managers’ internal arrangements, operations and corporate activity. Richard also advises on the potential impact of fund regulation, in particular AIFMD and the UK collective investment scheme regime, on joint ventures and similar structures.

Work highlights

Richard’s recent experience includes advising:

  • Morgan Stanley: on its European secured private credit funds.
  • Cerberus: on a number of European parallel fund structures investing alongside its flagship funds.
  • Aermont Capital: on its internal carried interest and fund co-investment arrangements.
  • Balfour Beatty: on the spin out of its infrastructure fund management team and sale of its fund interests.
  • Squarepoint Capital: on the spin-out of a team of systematic traders from Barclays, their creation of a new fund management business and its ongoing operation.
  • M&A transactions: advising on asset management aspects of a range of M&A transactions, including advising Phoenix Group on the acquisition of Sun Life of Canada UK, advising New York Life Investment Management on its acquisition of a stake in Tristan Capital Partners, advising Bank of America Merrill Lynch on the sale of CM Investment Solutions and advising Unicredit on the agreed contribution of the Pioneer business to a €5.35bn joint venture with Santander Asset Management

Professional experience

Richard joined Linklaters as a trainee solicitor in 2000, and qualified as a solicitor into the  Investment Funds department in 2002.

He has spent time on secondment to the Fund Derivatives desk of a major investment bank, as well as 18 months in Linklaters’ New York office.

Education and qualifications

Richard studied law at the University of Oxford.