Eriko Sakata

Eriko has over 20 years’ experience in the finance area and specialises in the areas of investment funds, regulatory advice, real estate and structured finance. 

She worked as secondment for 12-month in the Investment Funds Group of our Luxembourg office then for 12-month in our London Office. Since then, she worked on a number of transactions involving the formation and investment of funds in Luxembourg, Cayman or other offshore jurisdictions. She is also experienced across a broad range of regulatory advisory work and has experience in the contentious regulatory space.

Eriko is recognised as Band 1 lawyer by Chambers Asia and as Notable practitioner by IFLR100 and received “Investment Funds Lawyer of the Year in Asia” by The Asia Legal Awards 2017.  She was also shortlisted in “Investment Fund in Asia” category of Euromoney Legal Media Group Asia Women in Business Law Awards 2019 and 2020. 

Work highlights

• SoftBank Group Corp.: advising on the US$93.15bn launch of the SoftBank Vision Fund (the world's largest ever private equity fund) which involved the establishment and license application of investment advisory companies in Japan, the UK and the US.
• Marubeni Corporation: advising on its setup of a Cayman limited partnership infrastructure fund and their seed asset investment in Australia gas infrastructure business.
• Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC): advising on its investment in the JAPAN ASEAN Women Empowerment Fund, a microfinance fund which will mainly provide debt to microfinance institutions in South East Asian countries.
• Japan Post Bank: advising on the US$3bn establishment of the Direct Lending Fund as its dedicated investment platform to invest in private debts to foreign middle-sized enterprises.
• Mitsubishi Corporation: advising on its negotiation and co-ordination of US$2.5bn of commitments for the US$7.5bn first close of the Global Strategic Infrastructure Alliance – an innovative new type of investment fund structure developed by OMERS (a major Canadian pension fund) which will invest in large scale infrastructure assets.
• Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation: advising on its investment in an infrastructure private equity fund managed by the Kotak Mahindra group.

Eriko studied law at Waseda University and the Legal Training and Research Institute of Japan.

She speaks English and Japanese.

Eriko is one of the committee member of The Investment Trust Association, Japan working to develop the Japanese asset management industry.

She speaks at the MUFG Global Asset Management Conference annually.