James Lane joins SEDA Experts’ Private Equity Expert Witness Practice

New York, NY, July 5, 2023 – SEDA Experts LLC, a leading expert witness firm providing world-class financial expert witness services, announced today that James Lane joined the firm as Managing Director and Expert Witness.

“Jim Lane brings a wealth of experience as an investor and a money manager in private equity,” said Peter Selman, Chairman and Managing Partner of SEDA Experts.

Jim Lane has over 35 years of Wall Street experience as a private equity and investment professional. In his career Jim created and led two highly successful private equity firms. One of these groups, Goldman Sachs’ PIA, is now one of the largest alternative investment firms in the world and the second, SG Capital Partners, generated top quartile investment returns.

Jim began his investing career at Goldman Sachs where he rose from Investment Banking Associate to General Partner in less than ten years. Jim’s initial focus was M&A and Leveraged Finance and he advised extensively on Leveraged Buyouts (LBOs) as well as co-investing as principal for the firm. In this work Jim arranged all types of financing including high yield loans, senior secured, and subordinated debt. He transferred to London in 1989 as a General Partner and managed the European Corporate Finance and Merchant Banking businesses until 1993.

This activity led to the firm’s first Fund which invested in Private Equity and Mezzanine Debt of which Jim was a founding member and Co-Head at a time when it invested over 1.5bn USD of capital. The Principal Investment Area, (PIA), the private equity business of Goldman Sachs, operated across a variety of different industries and geographies. Jim was exposed to a range of private equity opportunities and invested across the capital structure as principal for the firm.

Jim next served as Chairman and founding CEO of SG Capital Partners, a private equity firm affiliated with Société Générale and SG Cowen Securities. He built the firm into one of the most successful and profitable units of SG Americas producing stellar returns to investors. The fund focused on middle market leveraged buyouts with a particular focus on nascent technology areas as well as biotech. More recently Jim has led Devonwood Capital Partners as Managing Partner. Devonwood provides guidance, strategy and capital introduction to a range of fast growing businesses across different sectors.

Jim started the New Canaan Society (NCS), a non profit organization, which operates as the largest men’s Christian fellowship group in the USA. NCS began with a group of 10 men and has grown into a network of thousands of business executives with 40 chapters across the country. NCS is designed to support men in the careers who are interested in the integration of their faith and work, striving to be a faithful presence in every sphere of life – their marriages, families, workplace, and communities.

Jim earned his BA, cum laude, from Wheaton College and his M.B.A., with highest honors, from Columbia University. He has served on numerous corporate boards including the portfolio companies of Goldman Sachs and Societe Generale.

About SEDA Experts LLC

SEDA is a leading expert witness firm specializing in financial services. We support international law firms by offering the highest level of expertise across the financial industry and providing access to the most influential financial services industry leaders. We provide superior independent advice, data analytics, valuation, and elite expert reports and testimony services to law firms, regulators, and leading financial institutions.

Tags: Private Equity, Alternative Investments, corporate finance