Michael A. Gerstenzang is a partner based in the New York office.
Mr. Gerstenzang's practice focuses on organizing and advising private investment funds, including buyout funds, international funds, special situations funds, venture capital funds, hedge funds and other types of "alternative asset" investment vehicles. Mr. Gerstenzang also advises private investment funds in their investment activities, including acquisitions, dispositions, and shareholder arrangements with portfolio companies and among private equity consortium members. He has also represented fund sponsors and investment teams in connection with negotiating (and restructuring) “seed” investments, joint ventures and other general partner/management company arrangements.
Mr. Gerstenzang is distinguished as one of the country’s best private equity lawyers by
Chambers USA America’s Leading Lawyers for Business,
The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers and
PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook. Best Lawyers chose to include Mr. Gerstenzang in its 2008 edition of
The Best Lawyers in America.
Mr. Gerstenzang regularly represents TPG in its fund formation and investment activities, as well as Citigroup and Credit Suisse. He has also advised Dune Capital, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Fortress in connection with the establishment of private investment funds, and regularly represents several institutional and pension plan investors in private investment funds.
Mr. Gerstenzang joined the firm in 1992 and became a partner in 1999. From 1994 through 1996, he was resident in the Brussels office. Mr. Gerstenzang received a J.D. degree from Columbia University in 1989, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Editor-in-Chief of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and an undergraduate degree,
magna cum laude, from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1986. From 1989-1991, Mr. Gerstenzang served as a law clerk to the Honorable Frank X. Altimari, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. From 1991 to 1992, he was a legal assistant to the Honorable Richard C. Allison at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal in the Hague.
Mr. Gerstenzang is a member of the Committee on Private Investment Funds of the Bar Association of the City of New York. He is also a member of the Private Investment Fund Forum, a group comprised of lawyers practicing primarily in the private investment fund area. Mr. Gerstenzang regularly speaks on private investment related topics, including at the IBA/ABA International Conference on Private Investment Funds and the Private Equity Forum sponsored by the Practicing Law Institute. He is a member of the organizing committee of the 2008 IBA/ABA Conference on Private Investment Funds. Mr. Gerstenzang is a member of the Bar in New York, and is admitted to practice before the United States District Court, Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.