Associate Partner - Mergers & Acquisition - Tax & Deal Advisory

The role demands a technically exceptional advisor who is equally adept at managing complex, multi-workstream deal mandates and at building trusted, long-term relationships with PE sponsors, strategic acquirers, founders, and investment banks. The successful candidate will lead tax due diligence, deal structuring, SPA advisory, and post-deal integration engagements while also playing a material role in business development, practice growth, and team leadership.

Technical Advisory & Transaction Execution

- Lead buy-side and sell-side tax due diligence across domestic and cross-border transactions identifying, quantifying, and clearly communicating tax exposures, contingent liabilities, and structural risks to deal teams and investment committees

- Design and advise on optimal deal structures share vs. asset acquisitions, slump sales, itemised transfers, demergers, NCLT merger schemes, and business transfers with a sharp focus on tax efficiency, regulatory compliance, and commercial workability

- Advise on purchase price mechanics and SPA provisions including tax representations and warranties, indemnities, tax covenants, earn-out tax treatment, warranty and indemnity (W&I) insurance, and locked- box vs. completion accounts mechanisms

- Provide comprehensive cross-border M&A advisory structuring inbound acquisitions, outbound investments, offshore holding structures, repatriation strategies, and exit tax planning across relevant treaty and FEMA / FDI frameworks

- Advise PE sponsors and portfolio companies on exit structuring - IPO readiness from a tax perspective, secondary PE sales, drag-along and tag-along mechanics, management buyouts, and rollover structures

- Advise on indirect tax (GST / Stamp Duty) implications of deal structures, in coordination with the Indirect Tax practice; flag deal-critical indirect tax exposures in due diligence

Client Management

- Serve as the lead relationship partner for a portfolio of PE sponsors, strategic acquirers, and founder-led businesses owning client satisfaction, retention, and relationship expansion

Post-Deal & Restructuring Advisory

- Advise on post-acquisition tax integration - harmonisation of group tax positions, entity rationalisation, simplification of holding structures, and integration of acquired tax functions

- Counsel clients on employee incentive structuring in M&A contexts - ESOPs, phantom stock, Management Incentive Plans (MIPs), and their treatment in the context of acquisitions, exits, and accelerated vesting provisions

- Support on transfer pricing implications of post-deal restructuring, intercompany arrangements, and revised group structures, in coordination with the Transfer Pricing practice

- Advise on carved-out entity structuring, transition services agreements (TSAs), and regulatory filings associated with post-deal separations and integrations