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"Stephen Gillespie's arrival at the London office of Kirkland & Ellis in April 2006 was greeted with much fanfare, and the banking and finance partner has lived up to the hype. Gillespie got off to a good start in 2007, advising private equity house Bain Capital on the financing of its acquisition of Edgars Consolidated Stores, at that time the largest LBO in South African history.

Ross Allardice started his career as a trainee in the Edinburgh office of Dickson Minto before moving to London for one year. It was the perfect private equity grounding and Kirkland partners and (Dickson Minto alumni) Graham White and Raymond McKeeve knew they were getting a quality lawyer when they enticed him to the US firm. Since joining Kirkland, Allardice has helped advise several of the firm's top private equity clients."

This article appeared in its entirety in the January 2008 edition of The Lawyer.