Ropes & Gray adds EMEA secondaries partner

The firm has been building out its EMEA secondaries firepower in recent months with hires from Kirkland & Ellis and now Fried Frank.

Ropes & Gray has made a top-level hire in its London secondaries team as part of a concerted build-out over recent months.

The law firm has appointed Simon Saitowitz as a partner, according to a statement. Saitowitz comes from Fried Frank, where he represented GPs and LPs on GP-led secondaries, preferred equity and GP stakes deals, in addition to M&A processes.

Simon Saitowitz

His hire comes one month after the firm appointed Alexandra Chauvin, a former partner in the secondaries team at Kirkland & Ellis, as a counsel in the Funds team focused on GP-led deals. Chauvin ranked 13th in Secondaries Investor’s 2020 Next Gen Leaders, which lists the most promising people in secondaries under the age of 36.

Chauvin’s hire followed that of other former Kirkland partner Chris Townsend who joined the previous March.

The EMEA asset management team at Ropes & Gray numbers around 30, with more than 300 worldwide.

Ropes & Gray advised on a total of 225 transactions worth more than $72 billion across fund recapitalisations, preferred equity, spin-outs and portfolio sales in 2020, according to Secondaries Investor’s legal survey published last year.