John Fitzgerald

John Fitzgerald co-founded the Firm in 2003. Mr. Fitzgerald has more than thirty-five years of experience in private equity and law. Mr. Fitzgerald has expertise as a private equity investor, director and attorney. He specializes in sourcing and structuring acquisitions, investments and exits – combining tax, business and financial skills to engage in private equity buyouts, growth equity transactions, and investments in funds.

In private equity, Mr. Fitzgerald has direct experience in a full range of matters, including fund formation, acquisitions, mergers, financings, and divestitures (as well as the regulatory issues implicated by these transactions). Other significant private equity expertise covers consolidations, buyouts for private equity fund consortiums, acquisitions of financial services companies, and structuring transactions to minimize adverse tax consequences and maximize tax and economic benefits.

Prior to founding the Firm, Mr. Fitzgerald was an attorney for 22 years. During that time, he primarily worked as a partner at the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where he served as the head of the firm’s financial institutions practice. Mr. Fitzgerald has extensive expertise in financial industries, including commercial banking, mortgage banking and consumer lending.

As an attorney, Mr. Fitzgerald’s private equity clients have included many of the nation’s leading private equity firms: Madison Dearborn Partners, Bank of America, CIVC Partners, Bain Capital, Chemical Venture Partners, Chase Capital Partners, PNC Bank and Centre Partners, among others. Projects for these firms have included fund formations, venture capital investments, private equity buyouts (leveraged and non-leveraged) and divestitures, ranging in size from $20 million to $4 billion. Mr. Fitzgerald has worked on more than 200 separate corporate and private equity transactions.

Mr. Fitzgerald serves on the boards of multiple private equity firms as well as certain of their portfolio companies. Additionally, he is on the board of directors of the Daniels Fund, one of the largest foundations in the western United States.

Mr. Fitzgerald received a B.S. from the State University of New York – Oneonta, and his J.D. from New England School of Law, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review.