Weil Gotshal & Manges has added secondaries specialist Simon Saitowitz to its private equity team in London, marking the third partner hire for the office this year.​

Saitowitz joins Weil after nearly three years at Ropes & Gray, where he was a partner in the private equity transactions group, having trained at Weil before moving across to Fried Frank.​

His practice focuses on sponsor-side work and portfolio company deals, with particular expertise in complex GP-led transactions, preferred equity financings and other structured secondary transactions.​

Saitowitz is ranked in The Legal 500 UK for high-value private equity transactions and is considered one of the more experienced practitioners in the European secondaries market, having worked on single- and multi-asset GP-led transactions as well as developing liquidity techniques for asset managers.​

Weil’s international private equity co-head Marco Compagnoni, who is based in London, said Saitowitz would bring “a huge amount of experience” to the firm’s work with general partners (GPs), especially in areas such as secondaries, portfolio liquidity and fund structuring. “We are advising on some of the most consequential matters including new avenues for liquidity, an expansion of secondaries work across new asset classes and supporting our clients with increasingly sophisticated portfolio management techniques,” he added.​

New York-based private equity partner Brian Parness, who joined the firm from Ropes & Gray in 2022, added that secondaries and sponsor solutions transactions were a key area of growth on both sides of the Atlantic. “One thing that was critical for Simon when deciding to join Weil was the firm’s exceptional cross-border asset management and funds platform – just as it was for me,” he said.​

Saitowitz’s arrival follows two other partner hires in London this year. In January, the firm added credit finance partner Nicola Noël, formerly head of credit finance at Goldman Sachs, and infrastructure finance partner Simon Caridia, who joined from White & Case.​

Moving the other way, the London office lost three partners to rivals last year. In June, finance partner Reena Gogna departed for Paul Hastings, with structured finance partner Brian Maher joining her at Paul Hastings in August, while in November, lender-side leveraged finance partner Paul Stewart joined Freshfields, along with counsel Mark Davis and Nick Fortune.​

Weil advises more than 300 private equity clients globally, including all of the top 10 private equity funds and over 80% of the top 25, according to the PEI 300 2024. The firm’s secondaries team includes lawyers from its private equity, funds, tax and regulatory practices and regularly advises on bespoke structures for sponsors and fund managers.​

Last year, the firm launched offices in Los Angeles and San Francisco as part of a significant West Coast expansion, hiring private equity partners Tana Ryan and Navneeta Rekhi from Latham & Watkins to lead the initiative.

The London office has also seen notable changes in leadership. Longstanding London managing partner Mike Francies retired at the end of 2024 after more than two decades in the role. He has been succeeded by public M&A partner David Avery-Gee and private equity partner Jonathan Wood, who have taken over as co-managing partners of the office.​

With more than 40 partners, the firm’s London office is its largest base outside its New York headquarters.​