Gawain Hughes, a Chambers-ranked lawyer operating a market-leading investment funds practice, has joined Pillsbury as partner in London. He comes to the firm after a number of years with Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP, having also previously led the EMEA funds practice at DLA Piper.
“Growing our London office is a strategic priority for Pillsbury, as it provides vital services to our clients in cross-border and other important matters in the UK, across Europe and the Middle East, and globally,” said Office Managing Partner Matthew Oresman. “Gawain’s arrival marks exciting progress towards those goals. He has built a successful international funds practice that fits incredibly well on our platform, and significantly enhances our ability to meet investor clients’ evolving transactional needs. We are so pleased to welcome him to the firm.”
Hughes advises leading global institutional fund managers and investors on the structuring of and investment into unregulated investment funds, with a focus on private equity, infrastructure, real estate and debt investments. Hughes also has a market-leading transactional practice in all types of secondary and co-investment deals including portfolio sales, direct secondaries, syndicated secondaries, GP led restructurings and co-investments, acting for some of the most active global participants in these sectors.
Hughes is a member of the UK’s Association of Real Estate Fund’s corporate governance committee and regularly provides training to British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association members on key investor issues.
James Campbell, who leads Pillsbury’s London Corporate team, noted “Gawain offers deep knowledge and wide-ranging expertise to all types of investors. His impressive skillset, taken together with our existing funds capabilities and our broader strengths in representing financial industry clients, will be of enormous benefit to the various fund managers, family offices and institutional investors we represent, in Europe, U.S. and elsewhere.”
“Gawain’s knowledge of the funds landscape, and the secondary and co-investment markets in particular, is exceptional,” added Los Angeles-based Investment Funds partner Semma Arzapalo, who last year advised on the largest secondary sale transaction ever. “He immediately and significantly enhances Pillsbury’s offerings in those areas and—working with James, myself and other funds practitioners within the firm—presents a host of new opportunities for us to add value for clients.”
The addition of Hughes to the London Corporate group follows the promotion of practice members Nadia Barazi and Nick Burgess to the partnership earlier this year. The firm also recently welcomed Lillian Kim, a seasoned mergers and acquisitions lawyer with extensive experience acting for public company clients, as a partner in New York.
“I was drawn to Pillsbury because of its established reputation internationally, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit that has long been its hallmark,” Hughes said. “The firm is on a really exciting trajectory—in the UK and beyond—and I’m very much looking forward to playing a role in that effort.”
Pillsbury’s London office is comprised of differentiated practices that complement the Firm’s core strengths in the TMT, Energy, Financial, and other dynamic sectors. Pillsbury’s lawyers are recognised by Chambers, The Legal 500 and other leading publications for their expertise in Mergers & Acquisitions, Finance, Energy Projects, Nuclear, International Trade & Sanctions, International Arbitration, Global Sourcing & Technology Transactions, and Data Protection, Privacy & Cybersecurity matters. The Firm was named “M&A Team of the Year” at the British Legal Awards for its work on the Chelsea Football Club sale, which Law.com referred to as “the largest, most technically complex and fast-moving M&A transaction in the history of sport.”
