K&L Gates Expands Global Footprint, Financial Services Client Offerings with Establishment of Dublin Office

Dublin - Global law firm K&L Gates LLP has added its 48th office worldwide and ninth in Europe with the establishment of an office in Dublin, Ireland. The launch includes the hiring of asset management and investment funds (AMIF) lawyers Gayle Bowen, Shane Geraghty, and Michelle Lloyd as the office’s founding partners, with additional lawyers and practice capabilities planned for the office over time.

Bowen will join K&L Gates from Pinsent Masons LLP, where she was a founding partner and head of the Dublin office and is currently the leader of the firm’s Irish asset management and investment funds practice; Geraghty arrives from Dillon Eustace LLP; and Lloyd most recently practiced with Maples & Calder (Hong Kong) LLP, where she headed up the European funds team from the firm’s Hong Kong office. 

“We are delighted to welcome Gayle, Shane, and Michelle with their strong reputations in both the Dublin market and the AMIF client community to our firm as the founding partners of our new Dublin office,” commented Tony Griffiths, K&L Gates’ managing partner for Europe and the Middle East. “As a globally significant market for the asset management and investment funds and broader financial services industries, Dublin represents an important strategic step for our firm in helping to meet the global needs of our clients already doing or looking to do business throughout Europe and the rest of the world.”

Gayle Bowen has extensive experience advising asset managers on licensing options post-Brexit, the establishment of Irish regulated Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD)-compliant alternative products, and in relation to the global distribution and marketing of Irish funds. With particular proficiency in relation to cross-border mergers, she advised on the first re-domiciliation of a Jersey fund into Ireland and on the cross-border merger of two money market fund platforms, one of the first mergers effected under the UCITS IV procedures. Bowen also provides AIFMD advice to offshore managers looking to sell into Europe. 

She maintains a high profile in the Irish Funds industry, currently serving as chair of the Irish Funds ILP implementation working group, where she engages directly with the Central Bank to represent the views of the industry. Previously, she was a member of the Irish Funds Brexit Steering Group, and is the outgoing chair of the Irish Funds Legal & Regulatory Committee, which liaises with the Central Bank, the Irish government, and European bodies to represent the interests of the Irish funds industry.

Shane Geraghty regularly advises domestic and international asset managers in relation to the structuring, authorization, and operation of a broad range of Irish fund vehicles (UCITS and AIFs). He has particular interest in alternative asset investment strategies and private markets including private debt and real estate fund vehicles. He has advised on the establishment and operation of UCITS Management Companies and Alternative Investment Fund Managers in Ireland and on a branch basis in other EU jurisdictions. Geraghty also has advised on the structuring of Cayman Islands fund products, having previously worked as an attorney-at-law in the Cayman Islands.

Michelle Lloyd has recently returned to Ireland after a decade heading the European team in Maples & Calder’s Hong Kong office. She focuses her practice on advising asset managers on the structuring, establishment, and operation of a broad spectrum of UCITS and AIFs (including hedge, mutual, and private equity funds, managed account platforms, and master-feeder structures) and the governance and distribution of such entities. She is an active industry participant and served as a representative for the Irish Funds Industry Association in Hong Kong for ten years.

“As the only of the major AMIF markets in which K&L Gates did not already have an office, Dublin represents the most logical of steps for our firm, our leading global AMIF practice, and our clients,” said Michael Caccese, K&L Gates Chairman and co-leader of the firm’s Asset Management and Investment Funds practice area. “We have seen our AMIF practice continue to grow steadily over the course of the pandemic and through the past year, and the addition of these partners and a Dublin office will allow us to serve our clients in the AMIF and other practices even more fully and effectively in coming years.”

K&L Gates’ Global Managing Partner Jim Segerdahl stated: “We are pleased to continue our firm’s strategic growth through this launch in such an important market and with the addition of such a strong team.” 
 
K&L Gates’ Asset Management and Investment Funds practice has more than 50 years of experience in the financial services industry and comprises more than 150 lawyers throughout Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. These lawyers provide advice to investment companies and advisers, broker-dealers, emerging managers, and institutional investors across a range of areas, including on investment, hedge, private equity, and real estate funds, regulated funds and exchange-traded products, capital markets and derivatives, ERISA, ESG, and global regulation and distribution, among others.

The creation of the Dublin office continues recent strategic growth for K&L Gates that also has included the 2021 opening of offices in Nashville and Luxembourg, the 2022 hiring of a high-profile, multi-office renewable energy team in the U.S., and the addition of 140 new partners and of counsel across the firm globally since the beginning of 2020.

K&L Gates’ other European offices include London, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt, Milan, Munich, Paris, and Luxembourg.