Andrew Wright

Andrew is a leading member of the corporate practice at Kirkland & Ellis and is internationally recognized as one of the world’s leading attorneys in the field of private investment funds.

Andrew’s experience spans the entire range of investment funds activity, and includes more than 20 years’ experience counseling many of the industry’s largest and most prominent fund sponsors, as well as numerous boutique managers, on critical aspects of their business."

Andrew Wright is the best lawyer I’ve ever worked with. He is extremely efficient, proactive, responsive and knowledgeable. Above all he is always in a good mood, with a nice sense of humor and very nice to work with. He heads a great team of lawyers who always delivers very good quality work and meets the deadlines,” according to a client review in the 2021 edition of The Legal 500 United States, where he is ranked in its Hall of Fame.

Andrew has advised on hundreds of billions of dollars of private fund formations across a wide variety of strategies, including private equity, growth equity and leveraged buyout funds, funds focused on industry sectors such as technology, healthcare, consumer/retail, the financial sector and others, debt and credit funds, energy and infrastructure funds, emerging markets and other geographically-oriented funds, "hard asset" funds, co-investment funds, public equities and hedge funds, venture capital funds, feeder funds and fund-of-funds, and other private investment fund strategies.

As the investment funds market has matured and evolved, clients have routinely turned to Andrew to identify creative solutions and execute pioneering transactions such as: fund tender offers, general partner (GP)-led secondary sales, including both single-asset sales and “strip sales”, other cross-fund transactions, stapled secondaries, investment warehousing, cross-border fund restructurings and other complex fund-related transactions.

Andrew also assists GPs in fund operational matters, including investment structuring and fund-level credit facilities, as well as internal firm matters, such as devising, documenting and implementing internal management, compensation and succession planning arrangements, as well as employee co-investment vehicles and structures. Andrew also counsels fund managers on a wide range of regulatory compliance matters, including SEC compliance and examinations, as well as important investor relations and disclosure issues.

Throughout his career, Andrew has been involved as legal counsel in a wide range of complex, high-stakes private fund legal matters, including extraordinary events involving private investment funds and their sponsors, such as "key person" events, parent bankruptcies, investor defaults, strategic investments in a fund sponsor and minority stake sales, spin-outs, seed capital and anchor investor arrangements, regulatory investigations, crisis management issues and other significant matters and transactions.

Andrew is ranked as a leading investment funds lawyer by numerous publications, including Chambers & Partners, The Legal 500 U.S., IFLR1000, Who's Who Legal and the Guide to the World's Leading Investment Funds Lawyers.

In The Legal 500 U.S.'s Tier 1 ranking of Kirkland & Ellis LLP's private equity funds practice, Andrew is one of the few attorneys recognized in the Hall of Fame for being "at the pinnacle of the profession." He is called out as "one of the best fund formation attorneys out there" and is praised for "knowing the players, the industry, the issues and how to navigate them." The same publication has described Andrew as a "super-bright and thoughtful" attorney who was "singled out for his 'strategic vision, tremendous technical expertise and understanding of the commercial operations of investment funds, rather than just the legal theory.'"

Andrew "is a force to be reckoned with," an "outstanding fund formation lawyer," and is an "extraordinarily knowledgeable and responsive" attorney, who "stands out for his breadth of expertise," according to Chambers USA. Chambers USA's Band 1 ranking of Kirkland & Ellis LLP's fund formation practice says that "Andrew Wright earns sensational feedback from market sources: 'Andrew is extremely intelligent, very personable and takes the time to deliver the highest-quality work product.' One interviewee said: 'We're thrilled to have Andrew on our team and, quite frankly, we don't know what we would do without him.'" Clients describe Andrew as “brilliant” and “very intelligent and thoughtful in his advice.” He regularly works with major sponsors on forming growth equity and buyout funds.

In addition to the many fund sponsors he represents, Andrew's clients have also included institutional limited partners, sovereign wealth funds, investor advisory committees, senior investment professionals, U.S. and non-U.S. family offices, portfolio company executives, corporate affiliates / parents of private fund sponsors, market-leading placement agents and other constituents in the alternative investment space.