Global law firm Goodwin today announced that Krishna Skandakumar will join the firm’s Private Investment Funds practice as a partner, resident in the New York office. Skandakumar joins from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP where they served as Senior Counsel.
“As we continue to scale our global private markets secondaries practice, Krishna’s extensive experience representing both buyers and sellers in secondaries and GP-led transactions will enhance our ability to serve clients in this rapidly evolving market,” said Michael Halford, co-chair of Goodwin’s Private Investment Funds practice. “We are thrilled to welcome him to Goodwin.”
Krishna advises private equity and real estate managers and sponsors throughout the entire lifecycle of a private fund and has particular expertise assisting his clients with secondary and liquidity transactions. In the last five years, he has assisted clients in closing and investing in 29 single- and multi- asset continuation vehicle transactions, with aggregate transaction value of approximately $21.7 billion. Krishna also has significant experience with tender offers and portfolio sales of limited partner interests as well as the gamut of other types of secondary transactions, including structured secondaries, stapled secondaries, fund recapitalizations, strip-sales, sweetened primaries and other liquidity solutions.
In addition to Krishna, the firm has continued to strengthen its Secondaries practice with the recent hires of Jacqueline Eaves and Robert Emerson.
With over 200 dedicated lawyers and over fifty years of experience as innovators in fund structuring, Goodwin’s global Private Investment Funds team represents over 1,000 investment managers worldwide. The firm advises clients with funds ranging from less than $10 million to over $25 billion, with a particular focus in the private equity, real estate, technology, and life sciences sectors. The firm was recently named the Private Funds/Hedge Funds Law Firm of the Year by US News — Best Lawyers Best Law Firms 2023. It was also named among the top secondaries firms in the world by Secondaries Investor’s 2023 Law Firm Survey.
Goodwin has been named the number one firm (by deal count) for global M&A by Refinitiv in its full-year 2020, 2021 & 2022 league tables. In the most recent of these, Goodwin advised clients on 1,028 M&A transactions — 202 more deals than any other law firm. In addition to these results, the Q1 2023 league tables highly ranked Goodwin for its ability to advise clients throughout a variety of M&A and Private Equity transactions in multiple jurisdictions, including being named number one firm by deal count for Global M&A by Refinitiv, for European Buyouts by Mergermarket and for UK M&A by Bloomberg.
