Ashwath Rau is a senior partner at AZB & Partners, with over 18 years of experience since graduating from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 1999. Ashwath’s practice areas include mergers & acquisitions, private equity, joint ventures, financial regulatory, investment funds, corporate governance and general corporate advisory. On the funds side, he focuses on providing turn-key assistance to funds established in India or seeking to invest in the Indian sub-continent. He also advises on the placement of fund products, secondary transactions, co-investment arrangements, separately managed accounts, carried interest and other manager incentive schemes and investor disputes.
Ashwath has represented several fund managers in establishment of funds and managed accounts. Recently, Ashwath represented the Edelweiss group on its partnership with Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) for investing approximately USD 1.7 to 2.2 billion to purchase non- performing loans to Indian companies. In the past, Ashwath has been involved in the establishment of Macquarie SBI Infrastructure Fund, India’s largest infrastructure fund of USD 2 billon, set up as a joint venture between SBI, Macquarie (Australia) and IFC (Washington) and IDFC India Infrastructure Fund and India Infrastructure Fund II with a target corpus of over USD 2 billion. Ashwath has also advised on Dolma Impact Fund I, Nepal’s first private equity fund.
Aside from the funds practice, Ashwath recently advised on all India aspects of the € 41 billion global merger of Holcim and Lafarge to create LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest construction materials conglomerate including the ongoing USD 1.4 billion sale of Lafarge India to Nirma Ltd. and USD 2.5 billion acquisition of a majority stake in ACC Limited by Ambuja Cements Limited from Holcim in a complex M&A deal involving a merger recently approved by the Indian Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs.
Ashwath’s key clients include AIG, Apax, Bain Capital, Carlyle, Clearwater Capital, Edelweiss, Fidelity India Ventures, IDFC Alternatives, JP Morgan, Kotak Mahindra, Oman India Joint Investment, SBI Macquarie, SNC Lavalin, Warburg Pincus. Additionally, he has represented a broad range of LPs including IFC (Washington), Squadron Capital and some family offices.
Ashwath has consistently been rated amongst the top M&A, private equity and funds practitioners in India by reputed legal publications like Chambers & Partners, Asia Pacific Legal 500, Who’s Who Legal, Leading Lawyer 100 Guide and IFLR 100. Ashwath also featured in Asia Legal Business (Thomson Reuters) 2016 list of 40 under 40 top lawyers in Asia (ex-China) and India Business Law Journal’s (Vantage Asia) 2016 list of India’s Top 100 Lawyers.
Chambers & Partners, in its 2017 edition for Asia Pacific, ranked Ashwath as a leading corporate/M&A lawyer and stated that he is “a highly regarded practitioner respected for the technical know-how and expertise he offers to clients in high-profile M&A and private equity transactions”. The same publication also added that “he is one of the strongest corporate lawyers in India and has an excellent market reputation”. Ranking him as a leading Private Equity lawyer, Chambers & Partners, in its 2017 edition for Asia Pacific, hailed Ashwath as “the crème de la crème” and applauded his “technical know-how and expert knowledge of private equity issues”.
Ashwath is the sole member from India on the Investment Funds Committee of International Bar Association. He was awarded the Young Achiever’s Award (under 40 years) at the Legal Era Awards, 2015.
Prior to joining AZB & Partners, Ashwath was the head of the investment funds practice and co-head of the general corporate practice of a leading Indian law firm.
