Partner
-White & Case LLP
Mara Topping is a member of White & Case’s corporate funds group and concentrates on domestic and international private equity investment funds, venture capital funds and hedge funds.
Ms. Topping has extensive experience in the formation, structuring and issuance of securities by private equity investment vehicles. She has represented investment managers, sponsors and investors, including high-net-worth individuals as well as banks and other institutional investors including international and development financial institutions. She has extensive experience with the formation and organization of joint ventures, investment companies, private equity funds, real estate funds and asset management companies, both restricted and open-ended. Significant recent private equity vehicles that Ms. Topping has formed include vehicles targeting investments particularly in Africa, the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia (both India and Pakistan) and Latin America, as well as several vehicles with a global or sector-specific focus. Private equity vehicles for which Ms. Topping has provided legal representation include those targeted at the microcap, smallcap, and midcap sectors, the acquisition of distressed assets, investments in financial institutions, infrastructure, sustainable technologies, biodiversity sectors, expansions, reconstructions or reorganizations (including privatizations), management buy-ins and investments that combine both financial and social/developmental returns.
Ms. Topping also has extensive experience structuring investment funds that include one or more debt tranches at the fund level. In particular, Ms. Topping has structured funds that incorporate debt financing from the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank and other development financial institutions as well as debt financing from private commercial banks.
Ms. Topping also has extensive experience with the formation and organization of hedge funds, with and without sidecars, venture capital funds and funds of funds.
Ms. Topping is the recipient of two Fulbright Scholarships.