Minh-Chau Le 

In 2018 when Minh-Chau Le was a brand-new transactions partner, the first deal she led on her own was representing Genstar Capital as it acquired a majority stake in Advarra, Inc., a company that provides clinical research compliance services. As part of that transaction, she went on to help Advarra acquire companies itself so that the final deal was worth about $5 billion.

“I was with Advarra from the very start,” Le said, and she worked with the company as it grew. She knows the management team well and continued to advise them after the initial Genstar acquisition was completed.

She even assembled a team of Ropes attorneys to guide the company when it came under scrutiny from Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the Government Accountability Office. They answered all the GAO’s questions. “It was a nothing.”

So last year, when Genstar asked Le to help it sell its stake in Advarra, the deal was special to her.

“I don’t just acquire companies. I do think I built relationships with them,” she said.

Le generally works on deals with private equity companies. With interest rates now higher, those deals are a little harder to find and demand more creativity. So even though the deals are fewer, “I’ve been quite busy working with clients because … I’m someone they turn to figure out how to be more successful in their businesses,” she said.

Le has done a number of deals for TPG, the large private equity firm based in Texas, including two large deals in October. One was the firm’s purchase of Covetrus, an animal-health company, in a deal valued at $4 billion.

The other was TPG’s $2.2 billion acquisition of ClaimsXten from Change Healthcare. That deal helped resolve Justice Department objections to UnitedHeal Group’s acquisition of Change.

Le also does deals regularly with Audax Group, which she calls “a really solid, middle-market firm.” She first worked with it as a summer associate. “I’ve known these guys my entire career. … A lot of the [managing directors], I knew them when they were straight out of college.”

Audax often buys companies directly from founders. Those deals sometimes require special handling because founders might have been less than precise in their regulatory compliance, Le said. “You have to be really careful when you work on a deal like that because when you diligence it … you have to be honest, but then you also have to be really constructive.”

In April, she helped Audax make a growth investment in Pyramid Laboratories, a founder-run company that offers services for drug development. Le put the deal together with 10 other Ropes partners and lawyers from nearly as many legal specialties.

She noted that she was opposing counsel to the founder for the deal. “But now I’m his lawyer. He’s still running his company, and I’m the person who he turns to to ask for advice,” she said. “We have a great relationship.”

— Don DeBenedictis