Elena Rowlands

Elena Rowlands

  • Partner

Elena is a partner in our Tax Department, specialising in the taxation of asset managers, investment funds and their investors, and tax authority disputes.

Asset management

Elena has a broad practice advising asset managers on the tax issues affecting their businesses and products and institutional investors on their participation in investment structures. She acts for asset managers on the structuring and formation of private and listed alternative investment funds with a focus on private equity, venture, debt, infrastructure and real estate funds. She also works on the tax aspects of GP and LP-led transactions and secondaries (both buy-side and sell-side), carried interest arrangements and co-investment schemes as well as advising asset managers on the complex tax issues affecting their businesses including restructurings, succession planning and management spin-outs.

Tax disputes

Elena is a member of the firm's contentious tax group and advises clients on tax authority enquiries and investigations, whether they are informal enquiries, formal investigations or disputes in the tax tribunals and courts.

Elena is a member of the Alternative Investment Management Association’s working groups on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) and partnerships, a member of the Alternative Credit Council Tax Committee and a member of the Income Tax Sub-Committee of the Law Society. She regularly speaks at conferences and is the author of Tolley’s Tax Planning chapter on partnerships and the UK chapter of the Chambers and Partners Investment Funds 2022 Guide.

Elena is a member of the firm's Graduate Recruitment team and the Tax Pro Bono Committee.

Selected deals

  • Advising Hermes GPE on the tax aspects of the GP-led liquidity solution offered to the BT Pension Scheme for ~ 55% of an SMA consisting of 90 lower/mid-market private equity funds and co-investments with a reference date net asset value of ~ USD 1.2bn.
  • Advising on the structuring and launch of a number of risk retention-compliant fund structures for US CLO management houses.
  • Establishing a number of private equity funds and working with these clients to understand what structures would work best for them and their investors.
  • Advising Index Ventures on the closings of Index Ventures Growth VI, which raised US$2 billion, and Index Ventures XI, which closed at US$900 million.
  • Advising Literacy Capital plc (investment trust) on the tax aspects of its IPO on the Specialist Funds Segment of the London Stock Exchange.
  • Ongoing advice to a number of clients on the significant changes to partnership taxation (including salaried members, mixed members, disguised investment management fee planning and carried interest).
  • Assisting asset managers on various tax authority investigations and disputes (both UK and international).
  • Advising asset managers on global mobility issues in light of Covid-19 including permanent establishment issues and carry taxation globally.
  • Advising a range of institutional investors on their primary, secondary and co-investment programmes.
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