Biography: Private funds

Jonathan A Karen is a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where he is a member of the firm's corporate department. Mr Karen focuses on the organisation and operation of a wide range of private investment funds, including buyout funds, distressed, mezzanine and other debt funds, infrastructure funds, real estate funds, venture and growth capital funds, co-investment funds, hybrid funds and hedge funds.

He also counsels investment firms on a wide variety of matters involving private funds, including internal economic arrangements for private fund sponsors, M&A transactions and strategic investments involving private fund sponsors, as well as joint ventures, spin-outs and other corporate transactions involving private investment funds.

Mr Karen has significant experience with a diverse group of investment firms, and representative clients include Blackstone, Calera Capital, The Carlyle Group, Centerbridge, Lexington Partners, Macquarie and Silver Lake.

Mr Karen has been recognised as one of the leading private funds lawyers in the 2012 edition of The International Who's Who of Private Funds Lawyers and cited as a recommended private equity funds lawyer in The Legal 500 United States 2011. Mr Karen joined Simpson Thacher in 2001. He received his JD from New York University School of Law in 2001, where he edited the Annual Survey of American Law from 1999-2000. He received his BA from Duke University, cum laude, in 1998.