Getting the Deal Through - Private Equity 2024: Japan (Fund Formation)

He plays a vital senior role within the firm’s fund/asset management practice group which he has set up. With the resources of Japan’s largest law firm, he and his colleagues are able to assist clients in all aspects of large-scale buyout and financing transactions, including due diligence, financing and tax matters, strategy and compliance issues, and regulatory filings. Over 30 years, he has extensive experience as counsel to fund promoters, investment managers, placement agents, pension funds and various other financial institutions, providing specialist advice in respect of fund raising and placement of buyout funds, turnaround or mezzanine types of private equity funds, hedge funds, infrastructure funds, real estate funds and any other types of collective investment scheme. He also serves as counsel to investment fund institutions and advisers, financial advisers, banks and other senior lenders, advising on buyout loans and other debt/equity financing matters. He is a 1987 LLB graduate of the University of Tokyo and received an LLM from Harvard Law School in 1994. He has been a member of the Japanese and New York Bars since 1989 and 1995 respectively, and fluent in both English and Japanese. He joined the firm in 1989 and has been a partner from 1998. He spent one year on secondment at Cravath, Swaine and Moore, New York (1994 to 1995) and served as lecturer on finance law at Keio Law School, Tokyo (2004 to 2013) and as corporate auditor at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co., Ltd. (2014 to 2022).

Yoshiharu has extensive experience in various areas of international and domestic investment fundraising, including private equity, venture capital, mezzanine, infrastructure, real estate, and commodity funds, and is regularly consulted by top-ranked US and UK law firms for advice on Japanese regulatory matters. He frequently advises financial institutions and major companies, including banks, insurance companies, and private/government pension funds on their investments in international and domestic alternative funds in a timely and flexible manner. He also worked at the New York office of a Japanese mega bank (MUFG Bank) as a secondee, and has expertise in compliance-related matters relating to financial institutions.