Attorneys of Ramanathan & Vahanvati

Meet the Team

Quality, experience and maturity are the hallmarks of each of Ramanathan & Vahanvati’s attorneys.

We are uncompromising in terms of ensuring efficiency for the client, and work with a network of trusted associates to augment the client-engagement team as necessary. Our partners are regularly awarded recognition for their work by leading publications

Ashwin Ramanathan

Ashwin graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 2000, following which he began his career with ICICI Bank. He later joined AZB & Partners in 2004, where he continued till January 2019. Ashwin had been a senior partner at AZB since 2010.

His initial experience was with banking and structured finance. During his stint at AZB, his practice areas broadened to include mergers and acquisitions, fund formation, fintech and private equity transactions. He was also active in the derivatives and aviation finance space, besides leading the distressed debt and special situations practices. Recently, he has advised Convergent Finance on their investments in Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals, Jyoti International, Hindustan Foods and Camlin Fine Sciences. He has previously advised Fairfax in its acquisition of Thomas Cook in India, and thereafter Sterling Holidays, Quess Corp and the Catholic Syrian Bank, The Royal Bank of Scotland in the sale of its mortgage and credit card businesses to Ratnakar Bank, KKR on various structured credit transactions and ING Vysya Bank in relation to its proposed merger with Kotak Mahindra Bank, besides acting on a number of private equity growth investments in both publicly listed and privately held companies.

Ashwin was recognised by The Economic Times as one of India’s 40 hottest business leaders under the age of 40, in 2017 and is recommended as a leading individual by Asia Pacific Legal 500 for Banking & Finance, by Chambers & Partners for Aviation and Banking & Finance and by Who’s Who Legal for Mergers & Acquisitions.

Essaji Vahanvati

Essaji Vahanvati graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from the Government Law College, Mumbai. He started his career in AZB & Partners (erstwhile CZB & Partners) directly after graduation, in 2003. Essaji was elevated to partner in 2009 and continued with AZB until 2015. Since then, he was running his own independent practice.

At AZB, Essaji’s focus was private equity and mergers and acquisition (with a special focus on public market transactions, takeover offers and delisting). He has worked for marquee private equity firms including Blackstone, Warburg Pincus, Temasek, KKR, CVCI and Apax. During his time with AZB, he has also led commercial litigation and arbitrations, as well as strategic and regulatory advise for various banks including, notably, HSBC and HDFC Bank. He also handled complex mergers and demergers.

After AZB, Essaji has focused primarily on distressed debt, restructurings and litigation. He has worked extensively for the GTL group and recently assisted with the debt restructuring exercise undertaken by the Suzlon Group. Essaji has also advised family offices including the Patni Family group and the Gupta Family group. As part of his independent practise, Essaji has handled and spearheaded several commercial and regulatory litigations before the Delhi High Court, Mumbai High Court, Chennai High Court and the Supreme Court of India. He also has experience with NCLT and DRT matters.

Essaji has been recognized as a leading individual by Chambers & Partners and the RSG Law Firm Report for India.

Priyanka Roy

Priyanka graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 2000, following which she began her career with ICICI Bank, focusing on distressed debt and structured finance.

Following her time at ICICI Bank, she was with CRISIL and later joined J. Sagar Associates (JSA) in 2006 where she continued till 2011, after which she left to pursue private practice. Priyanka had been a partner at JSA since 2008.

Priyanka’s initial experience was with banking (with a focus on distressed debt and corporate debt restructuring) and structured finance. While at CRISIL, she helped put together rating criteria for structured product offerings, particularly for the then nascent securitisation market in India. During her time at JSA, her practice areas diversified to include mergers and acquisitions, private equity and project finance, particularly in the telecom sector.

In recent times, Priyanka has worked extensively with the GTL Group, having first advised the group on its corporate debt restructuring. She advised Convergent Finance on their investments in Hindustan Foods and Waterfield Advisors on their fund raises and corporate matters. She advises the Dvara group (previously known as IFMR) on their fund raises, corporate restructuring and incubation funding and also advises companies in the fintech space.

Priyanka was recognised by Asia Law Leading Lawyers, in its 2016 edition, as a leading lawyer in Asia and was also recommended as a leading individual in India for banking and finance by IFLR (a Euromoney publication).

Siddharth Prasad

Siddharth graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and an LL.M. with Honors degree from the Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago.

He started his career in Wadia Ghandy & Co. in 2006. Siddharth has worked as a senior associate with AZB & Partners and Veritas Legal, and was recently a partner with Algo Legal. Siddharth has over 14 years of deal experience advising private equity & venture capital funds, strategic investors and promoters in investment transactions and internal restructurings.

Some of his prominent transactions include MedGenome’s fund raise from International Finance Corporation; Sequoia Capital India’s investments in fintech major CRED, Tokopedia, Eruditus and CoLearn; K Raheja Corp’s joint venture with Singapore’s GIC; GIC’s acquisition of a significant minority stake in Provenance Land (i.e. the Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai); sale of Dell Services business to NTT Data and Cipla group’s acquisition of InvaGen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Exelan Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Siddharth was most recently involved in advising Convergent Finance in its investment in, and open offer for, Jagsonpal Pharmaceuticals (a listed entity) and Marathon Edge in its 100% acquisition of N.A. Sportz Interactive (a sports data and analysis company).

Mansi Dua

Mansi Dua graduated with an LLB degree from the Campus Law Centre, Faculty of Law, Delhi University in 2014.

She joined Hemant Sahai and Associates after graduating and later joined Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas where she worked for over 5 years. In 2021 she joined Desai & Diwanji as Senior Associate. She has over 8 years of work experience advising in strategic investments, mergers and acquisitions, structured debt and promoter acquisition investments.

At Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, she was a part of the Projects team where she advised CLP India, Norfund, India Grid Trust in their acquisitions of various renewable energy assets pan India and advised HCC, Piramal, Goldman Sachs and Reliance Industries for their funding through structured debt instruments such as issuance of debentures and pass through certificates.

At her stint at Desai & Diwanji, her practice area expanded to include General Corporate and Mergers & Acquisitions where she worked on advising the promoter of J.K Shah Private Limited in their full exit from the company and Forbes & Company for 100% sale of their subsidiary Forbes Facility to Sila Group.

Rana Mukhi

Rana Mukhi graduated with an LLB. (Hons.) degree from the University of Exeter, after which he completed his Indian equivalency from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore.

Rana joined Ramanathan & Vahanvati as an associate in 2022. Rana has worked primarily in the fields of private equity and mergers and acquisitions and has experience in banking and finance.

Satabdi Dash

Satabdi graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from Gujarat National Law University in 2020. She began her career with Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan where she worked with the disputes team and was most recently at Trilegal. Satabdi has worked on mergers and acquisitions, in the public and private space and has also advised on matters involving insolvency and resolutions.

Her practice involves advising on matters ranging from private equity in varied sectors, banking and finance (including debt restructuring) and general corporate and regulatory advisory.