Sarah de Ste Croix

Practice Areas

Sarah is a partner in the private equity team specialising in the establishment and operation of closed-ended investment funds.

Sarah is head of Private funds and a Partner in the Stephenson Harwood Private Funds and Secondaries team. She is unusual in her experience having worked in a GP-focused fund formation practice, in-house as fundraising counsel for Actis, in industry as funds specialist at EY and now as a partner in Stephenson Harwood’s private equity team. She is one of only three Band 1 ranked secondaries practitioners in Chambers UK.

Sarah brings this experience to bear in her broad practice, advising on all aspects of private fund formation and transactions, including acting for both general partners on the establishment and day-to-day operation of private investment funds and their continuation vehicles and institutional investors and lead buyers in relation to the successful deployment of capital.

Sarah is also an experienced advisor on managed accounts and co-investment platforms as well as fund restructurings, roll-overs, secondaries sales and GP-stake liquidity solutions.

For her role in the first GP led secondary in Ukraine as well as the subsequent fundraise of Horizon Capital Fund IV, Sarah was named as one of The Lawyer’s “Hot 100” in the list of the most groundbreaking lawyers of 2023. The deal went on to win the team Funds Team of the Year in 2023.