Sullivan & Cromwell Adds Kirkland Team to Chase PE Deals

What happened

Sullivan & Cromwell, one of Wall Street's most storied white-shoe law firms, has hired a team of partners away from Kirkland & Ellis in a deliberate push into private equity work, according to the Financial Times 1. The move is notable because S&C has historically kept buyout sponsors at arm's length, even as firms like Kirkland built themselves into legal powerhouses by riding the private equity industry's decade-long expansion 1. By bringing in lawyers steeped in Kirkland's sponsor-side practice, S&C is signaling that it no longer wants to watch that fee pool grow without it.

The hire lands at a moment when private equity's core business — buying, holding and eventually exiting companies — is under visible strain and undergoing a period of adjustment. Owners of EverBank are weighing a sale or an initial public offering roughly three years after taking control, amid reported friction over strategy 2. Separately, software-focused buyout groups are confronting a wall of debt, with roughly $40 billion in Covid-era software buyout loans needing to be refinanced by 2028, a burden made heavier by fears that AI could erode the value of the underlying businesses 4. At the same time, Bloomberg reports that buyout funds are becoming more aggressive suitors for large, publicly listed companies, using recent stock market volatility as an opening to pursue take-private deals on blue-chip names that might once have been considered untouchable 5. Rounding out the picture, a Palm Beach real estate transaction shows a private equity figure, E. Burke Ross Jr., and his wife selling a vacant lot on Wells Road for $19.9 million, a reminder of the personal wealth the industry has generated even as its deal machinery faces new pressure 3.

Why it matters

Taken together, these developments describe an industry at an inflection point. Law firms are still racing to capture private equity mandates precisely because deal volume and complexity remain lucrative, even as the underlying economics of buyouts — financing costs, exit timing, technological disruption — grow more complicated. S&C's hiring push suggests confidence that private equity will keep generating high-value legal work despite, or perhaps because of, the turbulence described elsewhere in the coverage.

Where the reporting agrees

Across the board, the coverage points to an industry facing more friction in getting deals done and getting out of them than in the boom years. The EverBank and software-buyout stories both describe sponsors under pressure to manage exits and balance sheets more carefully than before 24. The Bloomberg report on take-private interest in blue-chip companies reinforces the sense that firms are actively hunting for new ways to deploy capital even as traditional exit routes like IPOs face headwinds 5. And the FT's framing of S&C's move implicitly agrees with this backdrop: it treats private equity as an industry substantial and durable enough to justify a historically cautious firm changing its posture 1.

Where it doesn't

The sources diverge mainly in scope and certainty rather than in direct contradiction. The EverBank exit is described as a possibility under consideration, with the FT-style sourcing language making clear a sale or IPO is not yet decided, only being explored 2. The $40 billion figure tied to software buyouts is presented as a specific, quantified maturity wall for 2028, a level of precision the other stories don't attempt to match 4. Bloomberg's account of buyout funds circling blue-chip listed companies describes a market-wide trend driven by stock volatility, a broader and more speculative claim than the company-specific reporting on EverBank 5. The Palm Beach property sale, meanwhile, is essentially a standalone data point about individual wealth tied to the industry rather than evidence of any deal-making trend, and no other source corroborates or references it 3. None of these accounts actually conflict with one another; they simply operate at different altitudes, from a single real estate transaction to firm-level strategy to market-wide financing risk.

The likely reading

The weight of the reporting supports a straightforward interpretation: private equity is not retreating, but it is adapting. Firms are still pursuing large take-private opportunities and still need top legal talent, which explains why S&C is willing to raid a rival for an established sponsor-side team 15. At the same time, existing portfolio companies like EverBank and the software firms facing 2028 refinancing deadlines show that the exit and financing side of the business has become harder, not easier 24. The Palm Beach sale is best read as color rather than trend — evidence of accumulated wealth, not a signal about the industry's direction 3. Read together, the sources describe a market maturing under pressure, one still attractive enough to draw fresh competition among advisers even as its own deal cycle grows more difficult to navigate.