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Kirkland & Ellis said it will stop reporting revenue and profits to the media, A&O Shearman landed a market-leading secondaries team in London, and Dechert and Taft added partners in Chicago. Davis Polk, Skadden and A&O Shearman also guided the $8.9 billion sale of Boots.
On the client side, Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX are chasing tens of billions in debt to buy AI chips, with Apollo, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs lining up as lenders. Apollo bid to take Uniper private, Google signed a 3.6-gigawatt power deal with Constellation while pausing two Finnish data centers, and oil climbed on reports of possible US strikes on Iran.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Kirkland stops disclosing revenue; A&O Shearman, Dechert and Taft add partners
-Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX chase AI-chip debt, with Apollo, Blackstone and Goldman lending
-Apollo bids for Uniper; Weston family buys Boots for $8.9bn (Davis Polk, Skadden, A&O Shearman)
-SEC warns asset managers on activist coordination; Wells Fargo faces a federal probe
-Google signs a 3.6GW Constellation power deal, then pauses Finland data centers on environmental review
-First Brands, Hertz and ION point to building credit distress
-France debt stress, 24-year-high yields and the Fed’s Waller keep rate pressure on
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
A&O Shearman hired Gabriel Boghossian and his secondaries team from Stephenson Harwood in London, a group rival recruiters had tried to move for years.
Dechert expanded its financial restructuring practice in Chicago with partner Jason Gott.
Taft added private client partner Lauren Benjamin in Chicago.
Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer hired the life sciences head of Sidley Austin in London, while Jones Day, Proskauer, Latham & Watkins and Paul Hastings also moved for City talent and Freshfields saw departures in Milan.
What today's moves tell us: firms are stocking restructuring and private-capital benches while transactional hiring continues, the kind of two-way build that fits a market pricing both more deals and more workouts.
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Operations and Strategy
Firms are rethinking how much of their economics to show the market, even as the money behind legal services keeps growing and leadership turns over.
Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s highest-grossing firm, told The American Lawyer that 2026 will be the last year it discloses revenue and profit figures to publications, including Bloomberg Law. Leadership concluded that public reporting of its numbers “does not provide meaningful value to our clients.” Consultant Kristin Stark of Fairfax Associates said rising profits per partner, set against sharp billing growth, increasingly prompt clients to ask whether that is the right use of their legal spend.
In the UK, the LB100 2026 data showed firms repositioning, with A&O Shearman “streamlining” and BCLP staging a profit-per-equity-partner comeback among the biggest movers.
Leadership churn continued at the smaller end. Ampa Group, the parent of Shakespeare Martineau, fired its chief executive after an independent investigation into allegations raised over the summer.
Practices
AI Infrastructure Finance and Private Credit
The AI build-out has become a financing story, and the structures are getting more complex. Dealmakers and fund managers are watching Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX line up chip debt with the largest alternative managers as lenders, which points to heavy structured-finance, intercreditor and credit-ratings work. When banks lend alongside those managers rather than instead of them, the advisory premium shifts into documentation, intercreditor terms and workout optionality.
Selected Press:
Oracle, Broadcom and SpaceX are seeking blockbuster debt deals to buy AI chips, with Broadcom pursuing more than $50 billion for custom chips developed with OpenAI, SpaceX about $40 billion for Nvidia chips, and Oracle financing a major purchase. Apollo, Blackstone and Goldman Sachs are among prospective lenders.
Oracle’s proposed structure would use a separate company to buy the chips and lease them back, limiting direct borrowing as infrastructure costs outrun cash flow and stretched public debt markets.
Blackstone-backed AirTrunk raised a $1 billion green loan led by SMBC, MUFG and United Overseas Bank to fund data-center build-out.
Corporate M&A and Private Equity
Strategic and sponsor deals keep clearing despite costlier money, led by carve-outs and take-privates. This remains a market that rewards prepared buyers, and sponsors and corporates moving on assets they have tracked point to steady sell-side, financing and antitrust mandates.
Selected Press:
Apollo submitted a non-binding offer to take German state-owned Uniper private at up to an $11.2 billion valuation, while RWE played down a major role in a rival bid alongside KKR.
Canada’s Weston family agreed to buy Boots from Sycamore Partners for $8.9 billion, with Davis Polk, Skadden and A&O Shearman guiding the cross-border deal.
Sanlam offered $1.2 billion for the 37% of Santam it does not own, and Brookfield agreed to buy and develop ESR’s Indian industrial-park portfolio for $444 million.
PE managers are pushing for “super carry” above the standard 20%, as the return of M&A reshapes the secondaries and continuation-fund market.
Corporate Governance and Regulatory
Regulators are redrawing the lines on investor coordination and consumer-finance oversight, shaping how boards and general counsel manage activist engagement and compliance.
Selected Press:
The SEC warned asset managers against collaborating on activist campaigns after a climate push at ExxonMobil, raising the bar for how large holders coordinate.
US regulators opened a probe into Wells Fargo over its efforts to boost Black homeownership.
The CFPB adopted a lighter-touch supervision approach, expediting more than half of spring exams and selecting roughly half the usual number of companies for 2026 reviews.
Restructuring and Litigation
Higher-for-longer rates are surfacing in distressed names, and funders face fresh constraints, which points to creditor-rights, liability-management and litigation-finance work.
Selected Press:
First Brands’ co-founder brothers will blame each other for fraud at a federal criminal trial, creditors to Hertz are organizing into groups, and software firm ION, with $11 billion of debt, pledged to avoid aggressive liability-management tactics and make creditors whole.
A New York appellate ruling flagged risk for litigation funders who strip too much risk out of their agreements, a caution for New York’s growing funding market.
Gibson won $4 million in fees from a bankrupt guitar rival in a long-running trademark dispute over Dean-branded instruments.
Where the Work Sits
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Oracle’s lease-back structure, Broadcom’s $50 billion-plus raise and SpaceX’s package point to structured-finance, intercreditor, credit-ratings and project-finance mandates, with the Google-Constellation power deal and the paused Finland sites adding energy, real estate and permitting work.
Private capital is doing the lending, and the work follows the paper. With Apollo, Blackstone and Goldman underwriting chip debt and AirTrunk raising a green loan, mandates sit in documentation, intercreditor terms, fund formation and the ratings analysis that opens these deals to insurers and pension funds.
Credit is turning defensive. First Brands’ fraud trial, Hertz’s creditor groups and ION’s debt load, set against 24-year-high yields and 17% borrowing costs for the weakest names, steer work toward liability-management, creditor-rights and special-situations teams in New York and London.
Governance and regulatory practices are also drawing demand. The SEC’s activist-coordination warning, the Wells Fargo probe and the CFPB’s lighter touch pull work toward board-defense and disclosure counseling on one side and recalibrated compliance on the other, while litigation funders digest a New York ruling on how much risk they can shed.
Global Markets
Rates and geopolitics are the dominant variables, and clients are positioning around both. Executives and treasurers are weighing whether to lock in financing with long-dated yields at 24-year highs and the Fed’s Christopher Waller signaling more hikes may be needed.
In past cycles, funding-led squeezes have surfaced first in the weakest borrowers, and 17% rates for the lowest-rated names fit that pattern, keeping refinancing and restructuring advice in demand. Global dealmakers are watching France’s debt stress and renewed oil risk, while fund managers track China’s supply-heavy stimulus for its effect on global demand.
Selected Press:
Ten-year Treasury yields touched 5.35%, a 24-year high, the 30-year mortgage rate hit 7.49%, and Fed Governor Christopher Waller said further hikes will likely be needed, with flexibility on timing.
France’s debt is now riskier than a chunk of its own corporate bonds amid renewed student protests, and the Bank of France warned that all countries face higher borrowing costs.
Oil climbed on reports of possible US strikes on Iran and Houthi attacks on two Saudi airports, while China’s “state-guided” stimulus drew skepticism from JPMorgan, Citi and Morgan Stanley economists.
Stories to Watch
Fed speakers and the rate path - after Waller flagged more hikes, markets watch whether the expected October pause holds.
Bank earnings next week (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citigroup) - first read on trading, investment banking and credit quality; Wells Fargo reports under a fresh federal probe.
EU-China trade talks - the EU's trade chief is in Beijing to avert a trade war as the bloc takes a harder line and China defends its currency.
PepsiCo (today) and Delta Air Lines (Fri.) - consumer and travel demand reads into the holiday quarter.
Oil and the Strait of Hormuz - US-strike reports and Houthi airport attacks keep energy risk live.
France - renewed student protests and debt-risk signals test euro-area stability.
That’s the rundown. See you next where law meets the markets.
-The BigLaw Markets Team
*DISCLAIMER: BigLaw Markets analyzes publicly available information, filings, press releases, and news stories published by reputable media sources to deliver content that highlights demand for legal services. Certain production processes may be supported by proprietary AI tools and are subject to human editorial judgement and review.
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