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 the corporate legal team at ICICI Bank.

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 in banking, covering a range of financing related advisory from project finance to corporate banking (including structured leveraged funding, distressed debt resolution 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, regulatory advisory and private equity.

Priyanka advises private equity funds and companies across varied sectors with their fund raises and corporate advisory requirements, family offices and private clients. She has acted for banks and financial institutions on corporate debt restructuring of various companies including Mukund Steel, Jindal Steel and Essar Steel. She has represented the GTL Group on its corporate debt restructuring. She has advised banks such as Standard Chartered Bank, China Development Bank, Barclays and ICICI Bank on fund raises in the telecom sector, including funding to Tata Telecom and Reliance Communications for capacity expansion and spectrum purchase. Priyanka has advised the Welspun Group on its acquisition of the ‘Vikram Ispat’ steel unit from Grasim Industries. She has advised Convergent Finance on their investments in Hindustan Foods (a publicly traded company) and Jyoti International, the Nirma Group on various strategic acquisitions, Waterfield Advisors since its inception, on their fund raises and corporate matters and Marathon Edge on their investments. She represents Alpha Alternatives on their structured funding in various sectors. The Dvara Group, a pioneer in the micro finance and financial inclusion space is a long standing client and she has advised and continues to advise the group on diverse matters from the restructuring of the group to setting up a gold investment platform to debt and equity fund raises by various group companies to most recently, setting up a credit guarantee company and sale of stake by Dvara Trust in the IPO of Northern Arc Capital Limited. Priyanka also advises fintech companies including Bank Bazaar and private clients on family settlements and estate planning. She currently serves as an independent director on the board of directors of a publicly listed, regulated finance company, active in the digital lending space.

Priyanka has been 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).

Read More..

Ravi Kumar

Ravi graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore in 2002. Ravi has worked with various corporate law firms in Mumbai. He was a partner at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas from 2015 till 2021, and most recently, was a partner at IndusLaw from 2021 till 2024.

Ravi advises on a broad range of corporate transactions across a range of sectors, including public and private M&A transactions, private equity transactions and joint ventures. He is an expert on Indian securities laws regulations, especially the Indian Takeovers and Delisting Regulations, having led high value and complex transactions (including “first of their kind”). He has deep knowledge of the various disclosure/governance related regulations that are applicable to Indian listed companies and has represented various corporates in proceedings launched by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. He regularly advises Indian conglomerates and their sponsors (such as Suzlon Energy Limited, the Adani Group and the Essar Group) on their growth and asset monetization strategies, regulatory issues, corporate governance and board advisory related matters.

Ravi also has worked in-house with a couple of private equity funds, including at GE Corporate Finance, which helps with his in-depth understanding of corporate and investment processes, and strategy.

Recently, he has advised Agro Tech Foods Limited (and their controlling shareholders Samara Capital and Infinity Funds advised by Convergent Corporate Finance) in its acquisition of 100% of the shares of Del Monte Foods Private Limited (selling shareholders being the Bharti Group and Del Monte). He had also advised Samara Capital, when Samara Capital and Infinity Funds advised by Convergent Corporate Finance had acquired control of Agro Tech Foods Limited in 2024. His other recent notable transactions include advising Axis Energy Ventures in setting up a hybrid (solar/wind) renewable energy platform with Brookfield with an overall commitment of US$ 850 million, and advising the National Stock Exchange of India Limited on its sale of digital technology business to Investcorp for US$120 million.

Ravi has been ranked among the Top 15 M&A Lawyers in Asia for 2023 by ALB. Ravi has been regularly featured and rated in various legal and trade publications for his M&A and General Corporate work.

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).

Mmini Kapoor

Mmini graduated with a B.Com. degree from HR College of Commerce, Mumbai and an LLB. (Hons.) degree from Kishinchand Chellaram Law College, Mumbai.

She started her corporate career in Alliance Legal India Partners in 2011. Mmini has worked as a Senior Associate with IndusLaw and Samvad Partners and was recently a Principal Associate with Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, Mumbai.

Mmini has over 13 years of transaction experience in advising strategic investors, promoters, private equity funds in private equity investments and mergers and acquisitions transactions.

She has advised the Dvara group on fund raises from foreign investors and on their group restructuring, Warburg Pincus on its investment in Perfios Software Solutions and acquisition of Watertec India and PayPal Inc’s investment in Mintoak Innovations. She has also represented Mahindra & Mahindra on its acquisition of ‘BabyOye’, Navneet Education on its acquisition of Encyclopaedia Britannica (India), the promoter group of Resinova Chemie Limited in its stake sale to Astral Poly Technik Limited and Convergent Finance on its investment in Hindustan Foods (a publicly listed company).

Mmini has also had the opportunity to work in-house with GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical, Mumbai, where she assisted on restructuring their businesses and setting up of their first ever global capabilities centre., GSK India Global Services Private Limited in Bengaluru.

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.

Aditi Nandanwar

Aditi graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from the Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur in 2020.

She started her career at Aarna Law, Bengaluru, where her focus areas included general corporate advisory and dispute resolution practices. In 2021, she transitioned to IndusLaw, Mumbai where she has since advised on mergers and acquisitions (including for listed companies) and private equity investments. Aditi has worked with notable public and listed companies such as Patel Infrastructure Limited, NSE, Suzlon Energies, and Ocean Sparkle Limited. Recently, she advised Samara Capital on their acquisition of a controlling stake in ATFL, a listed company.

Satabdi Dash

Satabdi graduated with a B.A. LLB. (Hons.) degree from Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar in 2020.

She began her career at Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan, where her focus areas included advisory and dispute resolution in relation to insolvency matters. In 2022, she transitioned to Trilegal, Gurgaon where she has since advised on mergers and acquisitions (in the public and private space) and private equity investments. Satabdi has advised the promoter group of Polyplex Corporation Limited in sale of minority stake to AGP Holdco Limited and Hyundai Motor India in acquisition of GM India’s Talegaon manufacturing facility. Most recently, she has advised Convergent Finance and Samara Capital on their acquisition of controlling stake in Agro Tech Foods Limited and Bankbazaar in its fundraise from existing investors. She routinely advises Marathon Edge and Convergent Finance on their investments in portfolio companies.

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 advises on matters ranging from private equity to debt funding and estate planning. He has advised Marathon Edge on their investments in portfolio companies, the Dvara Group, a pioneer in the micro finance and financial inclusion, on fund raise by way of debt and also sale of stake by Dvara Trust in the IPO of Northern Arc Capital Limited and Alpha Alternatives on their structured funding. He routinely advises ECube, on their ESG solution offerings and also private clients on succession planning and family settlements.

Nivedita Sharma

Nivedita graduated with an LLB ( Hons.) degree from National Law University, Jodhpur in 2024 and has started her career at Ramanathan & Vahanvati.

She assists on due diligences for various investment transactions, has advised Alpha Alternatives on their structured lending transactions, assisted on private client matters and other private equity transactions and mergers and acquisitions.

Malika Lalwani

Malika Lalwani graduated with an LLB. degree from Government Law College, Mumbai in 2024 and has started her career at Ramanathan & Vahanvati.

She assists on due diligences for various investment transactions, has advised Alpha Alternatives on their structured lending transactions, assisted on private client matters and other private equity transactions and mergers and acquisitions.

Disclaimer

The Bar Council of India does not permit solicitation of work and advertising by legal practitioners and advocates.

No part of this website should be construed as an advertisement of or solicitation, inducement or invitation for the legal services offered by Ramanathan & Vahanvati. No content available on this website should be used or construed as legal advice. 

By clicking on the “I agree” button below, you confirm that you wish to access this website voluntarily.