A private equity team led by Mehdi Khodadad has joined Sidley Austin from Cooley. The team consists of Khodadad, partners Josh DuClos and Eric Kauffman, counsel Stacy Crosnicker and several associates. Khodadad, DuClos and Kauffmann are in Sidley’s Century City office, while Crosnicker is in Washington DC. Khodadad and DuClos represent corporations and entrepreneurs along with their private equity and venture capital sponsors in matters related to private and public financings, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings, leveraged buy-outs, cross-border and other related private equity transactions. While their practice spans many industries, they are particularly active in technology and healthcare. Clearlake

Renaissance Capital, an emerging and frontier markets investment bank, has appointed Omar Gaafar as Vice President, Investment Banking, in Cairo. Gaafar will be covering Egypt and MENA, and will report to Amr Helal, CEO, North Africa.  Helal says: “We are delighted that Omar is joining the team. His extensive and strong experience will allow us to enhance our client offering. We are actively building our on-the-ground team in line with the expanding pipeline. Since the establishment of Renaissance Capital’s office in Cairo back in 2017, we have gained a strong local foothold in the MENA region, consistently growing our market

Graycliff Partners has expanded its credit team with the addition of Brian O’Reilly as Managing Director. O’Reilly, former Managing Director at CVC Credit Partners, will be responsible for sourcing and evaluating portfolio investments for Graycliff’s dedicated credit fund. O’Reilly co-founded CVC Credit Partners’ US middle market lending platform, directly originating and executing over USD400 million middle market credit transactions over the last five years. Prior to CVC, O’Reilly spent seven years at Medley Capital sourcing, executing, and monitoring private debt investments. O’Reilly started his career at GE Capital. He holds an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and

Equistone Partners Europe (Equistone), a mid-market private equity investor, has appointed Will Copeland as Investment Manager in the firm’s Birmingham office. In addition Ed Baker has been promoted to the role of Investment Director in Equistone’s London office.  Copeland joins Equistone from BGF, where he worked as an Investor for three years, with responsibility for the full investment process from origination, through execution, to portfolio management and exit. Prior to this he worked at PwC for five years, originally in the London Audit team, before moving back to the Midlands, joining the Deals team in Birmingham. There he worked on

SK Capital Partners, a private investment firm focused on the specialty materials, chemicals and pharmaceuticals sectors, has appointed Ben Dillon as a Managing Director focused on investor relations and fundraising.  Dillon will work closely with Jim Marden, a longtime partner that led the investor relations function and fundraising for SK Capital’s three previous institutional funds, who will be transitioning his responsibilities over the balance of 2019.   Prior to joining SK Capital, Dillon was a Managing Director at Partners Group. He spent 12 years as a member of Partners Group’s Client Solutions team based in the firm’s New York office. During

Pantheon has appointed Janice Ince as Principal to its Global Infrastructure and Real Assets Investment Team, based in Pantheon’s San Francisco office.  Ince will focus on North American investment opportunity sourcing, evaluation and execution. Bringing 18 years of experience in energy and infrastructure investment and analysis, Ince joins from SteelRiver Infrastructure Partners where she was a Principal focusing on North American core infrastructure investments. Pantheon’s Global Infrastructure and Real Assets investment practice has enjoyed rapid growth since being established as dedicated investment strategies in 2009 and 2015 respectively. The investment heritage for each strategy extends back to 1997 when such

Ogier has appointed investment funds specialist Benoît Rose as a partner in its Luxembourg team. Rose has more than 15 years’ experience in asset management in Luxembourg, France and Switzerland, with previous experience including leading the investment funds team of an international law firm in Luxembourg and as a senior General Counsel role at a Swiss bank based in Zürich and Paris with responsibility for regulated cross-border European funds. A regular lecturer on investment funds and distribution-related topics, Rose has also acted in a senior public policy role in the French asset management industry association. Ogier’s Luxembourg practice partner Daniel