Morrison Cohen Launches Independent Sponsors Practice Group

Morrison Cohen is pleased to announce the formal launch of its Independent Sponsors Practice Group, creating a dedicated platform for the firm’s longstanding involvement advising independent sponsors, private investment firms and sponsor-led transactions across industries and structures. The practice is a natural outgrowth of the firm’s widely recognized private equity practice. Its formalization reflects the growing role independent sponsors play in middle-market and lower middle-market private equity transactions and enhances the firm’s ability to support sponsors in an increasingly competitive and time-sensitive market.

The Independent Sponsors Practice Group advises first-time and emerging sponsors on all aspects of sponsor-led investing, including platform and add-on acquisitions, deal-specific equity raises and co-investment structures, promote and carried interest economics, rollover equity and management incentives, governance and control rights, acquisition financing, and lender negotiations. The practice group understands and is designed to provide sophisticated advice with rational and flexible fee structures.

“Independent sponsors are an increasingly important part of the middle-market and lower middle-market private equity ecosystem,” said Managing Partner Steven Cooperman. “As that activity continues to grow, formalizing this practice underscores client demand for a dedicated team that understands how independent sponsors operate and delivers experienced and pragmatic, partner-level counsel throughout complex transactions.”

Independent sponsors face distinct challenges including raising capital on a deal-by-deal basis, aligning investors and management teams, and executing transactions efficiently without the infrastructure of a committed fund. Morrison Cohen’s Independent Sponsors Practice Group is designed to address these dynamics, delivering institutional-quality private equity and M&A guidance tailored to the way independent sponsors work.

The team is led by a multidisciplinary group of partners including Steven Cooperman, Brian Forman, Bryan Joggerst, David LaGalia, Randi Mason, Eric Moskowitz and Walter Rahmey, who work directly with clients throughout each transaction, from initial structuring through closing.

“Independent sponsors operate under significant time pressure and scrutiny from investors and lenders. They juggle a lot of balls simultaneously,” said Randi Mason, co-chair of the Corporate Practice. “Our team is focused on delivering hands-on, commercially grounded counsel that helps sponsors get all the work streams to converge efficiently while staying aligned with investors, management teams and lenders.”