A little more than two months after Kirkland & Ellis made waves by heading to Houston with its hire of Andrew Calder from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, the firm has snagged a key role advising longtime Simpson Thacher private equity client KKR & Co. on its creation of an oil and gas joint venture with Riverstone Holdings that will be one of the largest operators in Texas’ Barnett Shale formation.
The Am Law Daily reported in April that Kirkland had guaranteed Calder, 35, about $5 million in annual compensation to entice him to leave Simpson Thacher. KKR and Riverstone’s creation of the Trinity River Energy LLC is one of the first deals Calder has handled for KKR since leaving Simpson Thacher, which saw its former partner take the lead last month for The Blackstone Group on its $60 million offer to buy the Twin Oaks power plant in Texas from Optim Energy, the bankrupt power producer owned by billionaire Bill Gates’ investment firm.
