Aaron S. Kase

Aaron Kase is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group and a member of the Hedge Fund and Investment Management Group. A securities attorney and experienced advisor in the ever-changing area of alternative investments, he counsels both investment managers and investors. He also frequently represents start-ups and other entrepreneurial clients in capital raises through private placement offerings.

For investment and asset managers, Aaron helps principals navigate relationships with investors by structuring new commingled funds, restructuring existing funds and partnership arrangements and facilitating communications between market participants. These arrangements require an understanding of complex issues that can arise under Federal and state securities laws and the always practical (and usually innovative) solutions needed to address them. For one institutional client establishing a multiple-fund platform, Aaron’s structuring guidance permitted fund managers to obtain capital from classes of investors not usually accessible for similar offerings.

Aaron also assists single- and multi-manager teams organize their own managerial and compensation arrangements. On a recent engagement, he assisted a family office establish a complex bonus plan that balanced and fine-tuned competing goals of retention, performance incentives and tax efficiency.

His manager representations have spanned across the alternative investment world and have included fund of fund managers, hedge fund managers, real estate fund managers, private equity managers and hybrids of all of these. These representations involved a wide variety of investment approaches and strategies and legal structures of varying complexity.

For investors, ranging from family offices of all sizes to pension funds, Aaron provides up-to-the-minute advice on hedge fund and private equity investments, including analysis of fund terms and risks, structuring of syndication and co-investment opportunities, coordination of fund due diligence and advice on securities regulatory matters. Aaron’s input has been most critical in situations where single-family offices accept money from outside investors for the first time. In these cases, compliance with securities law becomes vital, but is often overlooked when one is without knowledge of the legal intricacies involved in this area.

Aaron also advises closely held businesses, notably professional service firms on a broad range of corporate matters, including complex succession issues, mergers and acquisitions, sophisticated joint ventures and capital raising activities. He recently advised a large professional firm through a contentious succession process, resolving conflicting plans for the firm’s future and assisting in soft-landing the client in the hands of new management.