MICHAEL J. SCHMIDTBERGER is a partner in Sidley's New York office. He is a member of the firm's Management Committee and Executive Committee, and is co-head of the Investment Funds, Advisers and Derivatives Group.
His principal areas of practice are securities and futures-related funds and corporate transactions, including related regulatory matters. Mr. Schmidtberger regularly advises and represents clients in domestic and international offerings of hedge funds, fund of funds, public and private commodity pools and structured derivative and principal-protected transactions. Mr. Schmidtberger has also counseled clients in numerous fund restructurings and work-out situations.
Representative funds/investment products include:
- Private placements (including hedge funds, futures funds, credit opportunity and hybrid funds);
- Offshore funds;
- Stock-exchange listed offshore funds;
- Funds of funds;
- Public commodity pools, including commodity ETFs;
- Hedge and private equity fund “feeder” platforms;
- Seed capital arrangements and negotiation;
- Employees’ securities companies; and
- Credit-enhanced offerings (both parent-guarantee and letter of credit structures).
In 2008, the Group was named “Investment Funds Team of the Year for the U.S.” by Chambers and Partners. In addition, in two of the past four years, Mr. Schmidtberger and his colleagues were ranked as the number one onshore hedge fund law firm in the Alpha Awards™ for hedge fund service providers (the practice placed second in each of the other two years). The rankings were based on a survey by Institutional Investor’s Alpha magazine of nearly 1,000 hedge fund firms, representing roughly $1.4 trillion in assets under management. Mr. Schmidtberger has also been highly ranked in publications such as Chambers USA (Band 1), PLC Which Lawyer?, Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal.
Publications
- "DB Commodity Index Tracking Fund: An Innovative Exchange-Traded Fund." Futures Magazine, September 2006 (with Michael Sackheim and James Munsell).
- "The Employees' Securities Company—An Employee Retention Vehicle." MFA Reporter. May 2000 (with David Lestz).
- "CFTC and SEC Pose Issues for Commodity Pool Disclosure." FIA-Review, November/December 1989 (with David Mitchell).
- New York City Bar, Committee on Futures Regulation, 1997-2000
- American Bar Association, Federal Regulation of Securities Committee; Private Investment Entities Committee
