Dean Collins

Partner

Dean Collins is a partner in O'Melveny's Singapore office and is the head of the Firm's fund formation practice in Asia.  Under Dean's leadership, O'Melveny was voted "2010 Fund Formation Law Firm of the Year in Asia" by Private Equity International and was selected as "VC/PE Foreign Fund Raising Legal Advisor of the Year 2010" by Zero2IPO.

Dean has acted on fund formation matters for a significant number of fund managers in relation to private equity, venture capital, infrastructure and hedge funds focused on China, India, South-East Asia and on a pan-Asian basis, and has provided advice to both major local and international institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds on their investments into funds.

Dean has been advising on the establishment of private equity funds since 1995, and offers a unique perspective amongst private practice lawyers having spent over six years at Actis, the leading pan-emerging markets private equity firm, first as an in-house lawyer (where he oversaw the complex spin-out of Actis from CDC Capital Partners as well as established a number of emerging markets funds), and then as a Director in its highly regarded fundraising team (where he played a major role in the successful US$2.9bn fundraising for Actis Emerging Markets 3).

Prior to Actis, Dean worked for a leading European law firm where he advised innumerable institutions and management teams on their fundraising efforts, as well as acting on investments, exits, fund manager spin-outs, fund management joint ventures and a range of other corporate finance matters, including the structuring and execution of a number of milestone transactions in what was at the time a nascent fund secondaries market. Dean has also worked as a consultant for UBS Capital, Merrill Lynch International, and a number of private equity backed businesses.

Chambers Asia 2011, Asia's Leading Lawyers for Business awarded Dean a Band 1 ranking for fund formation work, he is ranked by IFLR 1000 for both Hong Kong and China (where he has a Tier 1 ranking) and is the only lawyer at an international law firm in Singapore who is recognized in The International Who's Who of Private Fund Lawyers 2012.