Kate Withers > Ropes & Gray LLP > San Francisco, United States > Lawyer Profile
Ropes & Gray LLP Offices

THREE EMBARCADERO CENTER
SUITE 2200
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111
CALIFORNIA
United States
- Firm Profile
- Go to...
Kate Withers

Position
Kate Withers is a trusted advisor to clients on their most complex corporate transactions and a partner in Ropes & Gray’s global private equity transactions group based in New York and Los Angeles. Kate advises private equity investors and their portfolio companies on structured corporate transactions in the software, digital infrastructure, consumer, technology, health care, life sciences and financial services sectors.
Kate’s broad transactional experience—spanning private equity, strategic M&A, special situations, growth and venture capital transactions—and commercial focus on structuring and executing sophisticated corporate transactions to achieve her client’s business objectives enable her to represent clients on their most complex and bespoke corporate transactions, including:
- Technology-focused carve-out transactions;
- Domestic and cross-border mergers & acquisitions;
- Technology-focused joint ventures;
- Leveraged buyouts;
- Pharma and music royalty sales and purchases;
- Distressed acquisitions and special situations;
- Restructurings and recapitalizations; and
- Preferred equity and convertible debt investments.
In recent years, Kate’s private equity clients have included GI Partners, TPG, KKR & Co., Lindsay Goldberg, HPS Investment Partners, Vista Equity Partners, Crosspoint Capital, and West Coast middle market funds. Kate also has extensive experience representing strategic acquirers across industries on M&A transactions, including Facebook (now Meta), Abcam, Tencent Holdings, The National Geographic Society, Peloton Interactive, Bonobos, BBVA, Humana, Cisco, American Airlines, Allergan, J&J and numerous biotechnology companies on M&A matters.
Kate’s passion for advising clients on technology acquisitions and her deep understanding of financial services, software, data and life sciences businesses have their roots in her prior work as a quantitative data analyst in the financial services and health care industries, including at Bank of America, the World Bank, and for an interdisciplinary team of physician and economics researchers at the Wharton School of Business. Prior to attending law school, Kate studied economics as a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics and was a research assistant to George Akerlof (2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics) at the Brookings Institution.
Kate has been recognized as a 2022 Top Woman in Dealmaking by The Deal, by The Legal 500—the world’s largest legal referral guide—for her work in “Technology Transactions,” and by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star in M&A in the New York Metro Area.
For more information, please visit https://www.ropesgray.com/en/people/w/kate-withers
Lawyer Rankings
United States > M&A/corporate and commercial > Private equity buyouts: large deals ($500m+)
Ropes & Gray LLP handles a large volume of high-value PE-backed transactions in sectors such as tech and life sciences and benefits from a global network of practitioners that enables the team to regularly facilitate cross-border acquisitions. The team is adept at handling deals with unique financing, antitrust, and tax law considerations, and in addition to representing leading funds such as Warburg Pincus and TPG in connection with bulge-bracket platform deals, it also regularly acts on upper middle-market growth capital investments. The New York office is home to practice head David Blittner, who has vast experience advising funds on leveraged buyouts as well as on financing and restructuring matters, and Carolyn Vardi, who regularly leads on some of the firm’s most complex private equity M&A. Also in New York, Kate Withers is noted for her ability to handle transactions in regulated sectors such as healthcare tech, and Garrett Charon specialises in leveraged buyouts and take-privates. Chicago-based Neill Jakobe is a key contact for bulge-bracket buyouts, while San Francisco lawyers Jason Freedman and Minh-Chau Le advise on a diverse caseload of private equity-linked deals.
Lawyer Rankings
Top Tier Firm Rankings
- Investment fund formation and management > Alternative/hedge funds
- Finance > Financial services regulation
- Dispute resolution > E-discovery
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Dispute resolution > M&A litigation: defense
- Healthcare > Life sciences
- Investment fund formation and management > Mutual/registered/exchange-traded funds
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Healthcare > Service providers
Firm Rankings
- Finance > Capital markets: high-yield debt offerings
- Finance > Capital markets: equity offerings
- Media, technology and telecoms > Cyber law (including data privacy and data protection)
- Labor and employment > Employee benefits, executive compensation and retirement plans: transactional
- Tax > Not-for-profit (Fortune 1000 private foundations, national trade associations, and charities)
- Intellectual property > Patents: licensing
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Private equity buyouts: large deals ($500m+)
- Investment fund formation and management > Private equity funds (including venture capital)
- Tax > US taxes: non-contentious
- Antitrust > Cartel
- Dispute resolution > M&A litigation: defense
- M&A/corporate and commercial > M&A: large deals ($1bn+)
- Intellectual property > Patents: litigation (International Trade Commission)
- Real estate > Real estate
- Finance > Restructuring (including bankruptcy): corporate
- Dispute resolution > Securities litigation: defense
- Government > State attorneys general
- Labor and employment > Workplace and employment counseling
- Finance > Capital markets: high-yield debt offerings
- Finance > Fintech
- Antitrust > Merger control
- Intellectual property > Patents: litigation (full coverage)
- Finance > Structured finance: derivatives and structured products
- Media, technology and telecoms > Technology transactions
- Intellectual property > Trade secrets (litigation and non-contentious matters)
- Antitrust > Civil litigation/class actions: defense
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Venture capital and emerging companies
- Dispute resolution > Appellate: courts of appeals / Appellate: supreme courts (states and federal)
- Finance > Capital markets: debt offerings
- Finance > Commercial lending
- Dispute resolution > Corporate investigations and white-collar criminal defense
- Finance > Structured finance: securitization
- International trade and national security > Customs, export controls and economic sanctions
- M&A/corporate and commercial > Shareholder activism