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adam tope

Adam S. Tope

Partner
Adam is an excellent lawyer who consistently provides timely and effective counsel on complex legal issues.
Chambers Global 2023
About

Adam Tope advises secondaries firms, investment fund sponsors, and investors on fund formation and secondaries transactions. Having completed more than 200 secondaries transactions in his career, Adam has significant experience with pooled sale/purchase transactions and GP-led restructurings.

Adam's secondaries clients include lead investors in connection with GP-led and other complex secondary transactions and buyers and sellers in connection with the purchase and sale of fund interests.

Adam's sponsor-side clients include prominent and emerging private equity, infrastructure, energy transition, real estate, venture capital and hedge fund sponsors. He advises in multiple areas, including the drafting of offering memoranda, negotiations with investors and Investment Advisers Act and Investment Company Act compliance. Adam also draws on his computer science background to advise fund managers forming cryptofunds. Adam brings a global perspective to his practice, having represented managers and investors in dozens of jurisdictions.

Adam has worked with spin outs from Apollo, Carlyle, Riverstone, Summit Partners, and others. He has a deep understanding of how principal compensation is structured and can guide principals in negotiating vesting arrangements, key person/for cause removal rights, and rights to carried interest/promote.

Adam's investor-side clients include allocators, family offices, funds of funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and royal families. He represents these investors in dozens of transactions in nearly every jurisdiction on an annual basis.

Adam is a former entrepreneur and served as the president and CEO of one of the 500 largest online companies – giving him an entrepreneurial perspective useful to first time funds, startups and venture-backed organizations.

Bar admissionsDistrict of ColumbiaNew York

EXPERIENCE

Select Secondaries and GP-Led Transactions

Over 200 secondaries and GP-led transactions including:

  • Represent Renovus Capital Partners in connection with the formation of a multi-asset continuation fund
  • Represented Speyside Fund Advisors in connection with its single asset secondary of Opta Group
  • Represented Outfitter Energy in connection with the formation of its continuation fund in the oil and gas sector
  • Savant Growth in connection with its GP-led restructuring spin out of Kennet Partners and formation of a continuation fund (US$500 million)
  • Hamilton Lane in connection with numerous tender offers, GP restructurings, pooled sales and stapled secondaries 
  • Pantheon in connection with secondaries transactions including pooled sales/purchases and GP-led transactions 
  • A top-10 European secondaries firm in connection with GP-led restructurings and continuation funds
  • Regents of the University of California in connection with numerous secondary transactions
  • A family office in a secondary transaction resulting in the restructuring of a US$2 billion portfolio of private equity investments
Select Sponsor-side Fund Formation
  • Denali Growth Partners in connection with their first oversubscribed institutional fund
  • Five Point Energy in connection with their midstream and water infrastructure funds and related co-investments
  • Hull Street Energy in connection with its first institutional fund raising US$500 million 
  • NewRoad Capital Partners in connection with their growth equity funds
  • Palatine Capital Partners in connection with the formation of their real estate funds
  • Hamilton Lane in connection with the formation of numerous funds, fund of one and managed accounts
  • An fund sponsor in the structuring, formation and negotiation of over US$3.0 billion of commitments to hybrid funds focused on public equities
  • A large multifamily real estate manager in connection with the formation and negotiation of a US$1.2 billion multifamily fund
  • A principal of a US$600 million large venture capital holding company in connection with its structuring and formation
  • A venture capital sponsor in the formation and operation of the world's first cryptocurrency fund of funds
Select Investor-side Representation

Over 500 investor-side representations in funds, managed accounts and co-investments including: 

  • Represented over half of the top-10 sovereign wealth funds in connection with their co-investments and fund investments 
  • Numerous leading US endowments in connection with their fund investments 
  • A top-10 allocator in connection with its fund investments and co-investments
  • Numerous global family offices in connection with their fund investments and managed accounts
Education
  • J.D., Georgetown University Law Center 2007
    cum laude
  • B.S., Cornell University 2002

Awards

Chambers USA

  • Band 3, Nationwide Venture Capital: Fund Formation (2023)
  • Band 5, Nationwide Private Equity: Fund Formation (2021 – 2023)
    Chambers comments, "Adam Tope's diverse practice involves establishing a range of funds, including those focused on the energy sector." Clients say, "He provides great counsel and he has great experience." "He is accessible and extremely responsive."
  • Recognized Practitioner, Nationwide Investment Funds: Private Equity: Fund Formation (2019)

Chambers Global

  • Band 3, USA Venture Capital: Fund Formation (2023 – 2024)
  • Band 5, USA Private Equity: Fund Formation (2022 – 2024)

The Legal 500 United States

  • Next Generation Partners, Private Equity Funds (including Venture Capital) (2019 – 2022)
  • Recognized practitioner (2023)

Who's Who in Legal

  • Private Funds: Formation (2019, 2020)

Bylines

Seminars

  • Speaker, "Fireside chat - private credit secondaries: coming of age," Debtwire US Private Credit Forum 2023, June 14, 2023
  • Moderator, "A New Fund/Emerging Manager Roundtable: Ready, Set, Launch," 17th Annual Winter Forum On Real Estate Opportunity & Private Fund Investing, January 2020

Media Mentions

  • Quoted, "Cross fund trades may provide a out for mandatory fairness opinions," Secondaries Investor (August 31, 2023)
  • Quoted, "Side Letter: PE's cross-fund loophole," Private Equity International (August 31, 2023)
  • Quoted, "Why Startup Founders Should Check In With Their Investors About Compliance," The Defiant (February 14, 2022)
  • Quoted, "Placement Agents' Evolving Role in PE Fundraising and Potential Compliance Issues Sponsors Must Consider," Private Equity Law Report (November 2021)

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