OMM’s Collins joins Dechert, eyes new phase in Asia spin-outs

Collins, who is joined at Dechert by two associates from OMM, will continue to focus on private equity, real estate, venture capital and hedge fund formation. Industry sources say he has brought the bulk of his existing GP client base with him.

Collins has helped set up funds for a number of spin-out GPs in Asia - including the likes of Primavera Capital and KV Asia - and he expects successful private equity executives to continue departing global or pan-regional firms to launch their own vehicles. However, the dynamics are changing.

While the decision to spin-out has traditionally been driven by a desire for autonomy or higher levels of compensation - an independent player does not have to answer to a global investment committee or share fees and carried interest with a large group of colleagues - Collins claims to be seeing a small but significant increase in departures for strategic reasons.

"Large pan-Asian or global PE firms are pushing up the deal value because their funds are getting bigger and bigger. If you are in a market like India or Indonesia, you can't do many very large deals in the life of a fund and that's not very gratifying for the teams," he explains. "You have people saying, ‘I'm happy where I am, it's a great platform and I'm being paid more than I need to be paid, but doing one deal every two years is not exciting enough for me and I'm not going to be able to keep my team.'"

Dechert opened in Hong Kong in 2007 and Beijing in 2008. Its lawyers in those offices work in a variety of areas, including private equity and venture capital investments and exits in Greater China. The firm is well known in fund formation globally, but primarily for hedge funds and mutual funds. The recruitment of Collins is part of efforts to enhance the global funds practice.

Collins adds that he was encouraged by Dechert's capabilities on the regulatory side, which has become a key concern in private equity fundraising. The EU's Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) in particular has made managers more conscious of where and how they market fund products.

"We have moved into this very regulated new normal where having great fund formation lawyers is not enough," he says. "It is all about making sure your guys can market safely around the world. It is about making sure you can deal with the ongoing compliance burden, which no longer focuses on where you are but also where your investors are. It is about anticipating changes and being on top of them."

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