Profile: Michael Wolitzer

Private funds

Biography: Private funds

Michael Wolitzer is a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where he focuses on private investments funds. He represents many large and well-known private equity fund sponsors, including Blackstone, Centerbridge, Lexington, One Equity, Quadrangle, and Silver Lake, as well as sponsors of real-estate, venture-capital, mezzanine and distressed-debt funds. He has also represented global financial institutions in connection with their employee investment programmes. Wolitzer has been involved in a number of acquisitions, and investments in private investment firms, and has represented buyers, sellers and sponsors regarding the disposition of private fund interests.

Wolitzer is the co-chairman of the IBA Subcommittee on Private Investment Funds and is on the executive committee of the Private Investment Fund Forum. He has served on panels at several industry conferences, including 'How to Negotiate Winning Partnership Terms and Conditions' (Private Equity Analyst Conferences), 'Buying, Selling and Investing in Private Investment Fund Managers', 'Negotiating Fund Terms and Conditions' and 'Employee Investment Arrangements' (IBA/ABA conferences on private investment funds), 'Private Equity Funds: Investment Constraints and Key Issues to Watch Out For' (City Bar Conference on Leveraged Buyouts and Other Private Equity Investments), and 'How to Effectively Manage Multiple Funds' and 'Private Equity Funds: Partnering and Strategic Alliances' (IIR conferences on private equity fund formation).

Wolitzer has been a partner at Simpson Thacher since 1998. He received his AB magna cum laude in 1986 from Duke University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received his JD in 1989 from Columbia University, where he was a James Kent Scholar and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.