Biography: Private funds

Aldona Pietrzak is a partner with Gessel Attorneys at Law. Aldona specialises in corporate and securities law, focusing on the public trade of securities; she has had many years of experience in providing legal advice to brokerage houses and investment fund societies.

Her experience covers the preparation of issue prospectuses, representation of clients before the Polish regulatory authorities, the preparation of legal opinions, drafting shareholders agreements, advising on purchase and sale of significant packets of shares and designing management option programmes for publicly-traded and privately held companies.

Aldona Pietrzak has extensive expertise in the privatisation of state-owned enterprises and of State Treasury companies, from pre-privatisation of due diligence through to negotiations with potential buyers on behalf of the State Treasury and public listings.

She also specialises in due diligence studies conducted for purposes of various kinds of transactions and projects including; privatisation, restructuring, takeovers, mergers, and transformations.

At Gessel, Aldona is the partner responsible for the firm's due diligence team and for the corporate law department, which provides day-to-day legal services for companies. Aldona Pietrzak also brings her years of experience with a foreign trade company to the table when advising on international trade contracts.

Aldona graduated from the University of Warsaw's Faculty of Law and Administration in 1988. She was admitted to practice as a legal adviser in October 1992. Between 1990 and 1996, Aldona worked with FTE Cenzin Ltd and between 1993 and 2000 with Fortis Private Investments Polska SA (then Pioneer Polski Dom Maklerski and Polski Dom Maklerski SA). She has been with Gessel since 1996 and she has been a partner since 2007. Aldona is a member of the Warsaw Bar Association and of Monterey Funds Club. Aldona speaks Polish, English, Russian and French.