Sidley Austin has hired a trio of partners from Weil Gotshal & Manges as it builds its funds offering in London and continues its “transformational” growth in the city.

The group is led by Ed Gander, Weil’s global private funds co-head and London private funds head. He will be joined in the coming weeks by Stephen Fox and Peter Boulle, also partners in Weil’s private funds group.

The move was first reported in the financial and legal press late last month and has now been officially unveiled. 

Gander’s experience includes raising private equity, infrastructure, real estate, credit and secondaries funds. Between 2003 and 2006 he founded and led private equity business ViaNova Capital and was head of Clifford Chance’s global private funds group before joining Weil in 2011. Recently he has worked for clients such as Blue Horizon, PAI Partners and Helios. 

Fox and Boulle also joined Weil from Clifford Chance in 2011. Fox made partner in 2014, and has previously completed secondments to China Investment Corporation in Beijing and to Apax Partners for 12 months as its interim general counsel and in-house funds counsel. 

Boulle made partner in January this year, and alongside advising fund managers on the formation of private funds, counsels clients on fund-related matters including GP-led secondary transactions, GP-stake acquisitions and managed account arrangements. He has recently worked on matters for Lazard Asset Management and Oakley Capital, among other clients. 

At Sidley, Gander will lead the London private funds group and along with Fox and Boulle will work as part of a six-partner London-based funds team that includes Oren Gertner, Blake Fillion and EU/UK financial services and regulatory funds head Leonard Ng. 

The group practises across a range of asset classes, including advising on the structuring, marketing and negotiation of funds and the commercial and regulatory issues arising from the ongoing day-to-day operation of such funds.

Tom Thesing, managing partner of Sidley’s London office, said the hires continued Sidley’s “transformational” growth in London. 

Liz Fries, global leader of Sidley’s investment funds practice, added the incoming trio had built an “exceptional private funds practice and have relationships with leading sponsors who will benefit from onboarding onto our cross-border platform”.

Chicago-headquartered Sidley has been repeatedly hitting US rivals to grow in London, where the firm doubled its finance lawyer headcount last year and now has just north of 50 partners in total, according to its website. 

Since the start of 2024 the firm has hired a string of finance partners from Latham & Watkins, including Latham’s London finance co-chair, Tania Bedi, and a five-partner leveraged finance team led by Jayanthi Sadanandan and Sam Hamilton. Back in 2023 Sidley also recruited private equity M&A partners Ramy Wahbeh and Kaisa Kuusk from Paul Weiss. 

Going the other way Sidley’s former London investment funds head, James Oussedik, exited for Proskauer Rose in February. 

For its part Weil has appointed James Bromley and James Sargent to lead its private funds group in London. Recent hires for the firm in the city include finance partners Simon Caridia from White & Case and private equity M&A partner Simon Saitowitz from Ropes & Gray.