Five Kirkland Partners Named Dealmakers of the Year by The American Lawyer

The American Lawyer recognized Kirkland partners Andrew Calder, Maggie Flores, Sarkis Jebejian, John Kaercher and Melissa Kalka as 2026 “Dealmakers of the Year,” a list celebrating those who led some of the year’s most challenging, marketing-shifting and unprecedented deals.

Maggie and Sarkis were selected for leading the investor consortium of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Silver Lake and Affinity Partners on its $55 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts, the largest take-private investment in history. The team’s involvement in this historic transaction, believed to be PIF’s largest investment in a single company, was the culmination of multijurisdictional and cross-practice collaboration.

Andy, John and Melissa were selected for leading a consortium of AI Infrastructure Partners, MGX and BlackRock’s GIP on its $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers, the largest-ever data center transaction. Over the last 12 months, Kirkland has handled more than $164 billion in data center M&A and $67 billion in data center financings.

 “The secret to Kirkland’s success in the data center space is collaboration,” Andy said.