Profile: Jonathan Blake

Private funds

Biography: Private funds

Jonathan Blake is SJ Berwin's senior partner. He qualified in 1979 and has been a partner at SJ Berwin since 1982. Jonathan heads a team of pre-eminent private equity lawyers across Europe. In London, this includes leading transactional lawyers Martin Bowen, Steven Davis, Rob Day, Joanna Hamilton, Ed Harris, William Holder, Richard Lever, Graham Nicholson, Jonathan Pittal, Nicholas Plant, Mark Sanders, Ylan Steiner and Perry Yam, and funds experts Josyane Gold, Michael Halford, Nigel van Zyl, Duncan Woollard, and Simon Witney.

Jonathan advises private equity funds, investing institutions and management teams on management buyouts, venture and development capital investments and related taxation issues. He has a particular specialisation in advising private equity and venture capital fund managers in many countries in Europe and elsewhere on the structuring of venture capital funds, management companies and carried interest incentive arrangements.

In April 2004, Jonathan was admitted to the BVCA "Hall of Fame" in recognition of his contribution to the private equity industry. In April 2005, he was named global "Lawyer of the Year" for Private Funds by The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers. In October 2006, he was named as one of the "30 most influential lawyers in global private equity" by the highly regarded industry journal Private Equity International. In December 2007, he was included in weekly legal journal, The Lawyer's "Hall of Fame".

SJ Berwin's private equity team has received a number of prestigious awards in 2007, all voted for by the private-equity industry EVCJ "Private Equity Law Firm of the Year" for the fourth consecutive year, "Best Law Firm Fund Formation" at the Private Equity Online awards for the sixth consecutive year, "Fund Formation Team of the Year" at the Financial News Awards for Excellence in Private Equity Advisory Services for the second successive year and "Private Equity Team of the Year" at the inaugural Financial News Legal Awards.