Ben Richards
Overview
Ben Richards is a transactional partner in the Salt Lake City office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Ben has extensive experience in public and private securities transactions, including initial public offerings, SPAC business combinations, secondary offerings, block trades, and high-yield, investment grade and convertible debt offerings.
He also advises companies on mergers and acquisitions and other strategic corporate transactions as well as corporate governance matters, including public company reporting and SEC compliance, stock exchange listing requirements and securities transfer issues.
Ben was a member of the team that advised Boeing and handled billions worth of capital markets offerings that won “Dealmaker of the Year” recognition by The American Lawyer in 2025.
Experience
Representative Matters
Since joining Kirkland, Ben has been involved in the following transactions:
IPOs, Follow-on Offerings and De-SPACs
- $24.25 billion equity offering of The Boeing Company
- $90 million IPO of Palmer Square Capital BDC Inc.
- De-SPAC transaction of Nogin, Inc.
- $163 million secondary offering of JAMF Holding Corp.
- $180 million secondary offering of Oak Street Health, Inc. common stock
- $300 million secondary offering of R1 RCM, Inc. common stock
M&A and Strategic Transactions
- R1 RCM, Inc. in its take-private transaction with affiliates of TowerBrook Capital Partners and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
- Diversey, Inc. in its take-private transaction with Solenis, Inc.
- R1 RCM, Inc. in its acquisition of Cloudmed, Inc.
- Recapitalization transactions for Brand Industrial Services, Inc., including issuance of $1.3 billion of senior secured notes, issuance of $1.1 billion in equity and entry into new credit agreements
Debt Offerings
- $10 billion debt issuance for The Boeing Company
- Multiple debt issuances for Deere & Co. for a total of over $15 billion, including Deere’s first sustainability-linked bond
- Multiple debt issuances for Whirlpool Corporation
- $500 million debt issuance for Zebra Technologies Corporation
- $400 million debt issuance for Allegion plc
Prior to joining Kirkland, Ben was involved in the following transactions:
IPOs, Follow-on Offerings and De-SPACs
- Acutus Medical, Inc., Alkami Technology, Inc., Atreca, Inc., Coherent Corp., Elastic N.V., GoDaddy Inc., Grocery Outlet Holding Corp., Personalis, Inc., Playstudios, Inc., SMART Global Holdings Inc. and Xometry, Inc. in multiple equity transactions
M&A and Strategic Transactions
- SMART Global Holdings Inc. in its acquisition of Penguin Computing, Ltd.
Debt Offerings
- Comcast Corporation, Equinix, Inc., Intuit, Inc., Palo Alto Networks, Inc., Salesforce, Inc., Texas Instruments, Inc., Twitter, Inc., Uber Inc., Zynga, Inc. for a total of over $50 billion
Prior Experience
More
Recognition
Credentials
Admissions & Qualifications
- 2022Utah
- 2017California
Languages
- English
- Japanese
Education
- Harvard Law SchoolJ.D.cum laude2017
- Brigham Young UniversityB.S., Financecum laude2014
News &
Insights
- In the News The 2025 Dealmakers of The Year
- Press Release Kirkland Advises Boeing on Close of $24.25 Billion Equity Offering Marking Largest Follow-On in History
- Press Release Kirkland Advises R1 RCM on $8.9 Billion Acquisition by TowerBrook and CD&R
- Press Release Kirkland Represents Allegion plc on $400 Million Offering of Senior Notes
- Press Release Kirkland Represents Vista and its Portfolio Company Jamf on Successful Secondary Offering and Concurrent Repurchase by Jamf