BigLaw Races to Capture the Expanding Fund Finance Market
A recent Law360 article by Kevin Penton examines how the fund finance market — long dominated on the lender side by Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, Haynes Boone and Mayer Brown — is drawing intensified competition, as firms across the market build formal practices and recruit laterally to capture a growing share of the space.
Once limited largely to real estate private equity funds, fund finance has since expanded to venture capital, infrastructure, natural resources and beyond. The market is estimated to reach $2.5 trillion in value by 2030, and in 2024, nearly 97% of the private capital market used some form of fund finance product. That growth has translated directly into lateral movement, with scores of attorneys departing the three dominant firms for competitors in recent months.
Rose Corbett, Managing Director at Macrae New York, comments in the piece on what is driving the sustained demand for fund finance talent:
"Firms are going to have more and more supply, as these lawyers become more experienced. This is not going to come to an end anytime soon."
The article notes that firms handling broader transactions are increasingly reluctant to refer clients elsewhere for the fund financing component, creating further impetus to build or deepen in-house capabilities — and fuelling continued competition for experienced practitioners.
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