Michael L. Urschel, P.C.

Global alternative asset management firm TPG will acquire a majority stake in critical infrastructure provider Sabre Industries Inc. from Blackstone Energy Transition Partners in a deal guided by Latham & Watkins LLP, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, and Vinson & Elkins LLP, the companies announced Friday. According to the announcement, TPG used its TPG Rise Climate investment platform to obtain the majority stake, and the deal is supposed to be completed in the second quarter of 2026. Blackstone will keep its minority stake in Sabre, which initially received investments from Blackstone's managed funds in 2021, the companies said. According to the announcement, Sabre has 2,800 employees, and its clients include data centers and telecommunications companies. In a Friday article about the deal, Reuters reported that Sabre is worth $3.5 billion. In separate Friday statements, executives for all three companies praised the deal, with TPG partner Steven Mandel describing the transaction as "a significant opportunity." "We believe there is a significant opportunity for leading equipment providers to meet rising electricity demand and modernize a grid increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events," Mandel said. "Sabre's leadership in transmission and distribution, combined with its specialized enclosures for the data center market, positions the company at the heart of these essential trends." TPG declined to provide additional comment Friday. Blackstone and Sabre didn't respond to requests for additional comment. TPG is represented by Kristen Grannis, James Garrett, John Miller, Jameson Miller, Kevin Donovan, David Lee, Talia Wyschogrod, Jennifer Boyd, Harrison Little, Alec Born, James Langlois, Katharine Moir, Greg Conyers, Ben Rosemergy, Victoria Wolfe, Alyssa Dantoin, Sandy Benjamin, Sahar Merchant, Elizabeth Gemdjian, Debbie Hinck, Susana Santos, Victoria Allen, Scott Joiner, C.J. Rydberg, Julia Hatcher, Josh Marnitz, Anna Dykema, Phil Goldberg, Harrison White, Amara Banks, Enrique Covarrubias, Shira Bressler, and Brandon Hemans of Latham & Watkins LLP and Scott Rolnik, Lauren Nickoloff, Shelby Lindholm, Emily Barber, Michael Urschel, Brandon Karas, and Jared Rusman of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Blackstone is represented by Benji Barron, Jordan M. Fossee, Zac Horne, Rylie Goldwait, Chet Wynne, Domonique Richardson, Jason McIntosh, Brian Russell, Patrick Darby, David Wicklund, Megan Hardy, Dane Rogerson, Hill Wellford, Kara Kuritz, Ryan Will, Matt Dobbins, Kelly Rondinelli, Becky Baker, Peter Goetschel, Shane Tucker, Kenneth Strain, Madeline O'Neill, Sarah Mitchell, Victoria Bahrami-Negad, Jamie Leader, Courtney Hammond, Rajesh Patel, Haley Titcomb, Fry Wernick, Brian Howard, Joyce Adetutu, Randall Johnston, Frankie Vélez, and Claire Connor of Vinson & Elkins LLP.

Feb 6

2 min

Kirkland & Ellis LLP's acumen in structured finance helped it push a number of high-value deals across the finish line last year — including a multibillion-dollar financing package in connection with the acquisition and restructuring of Metronet by KKR and T-Mobile — earning the firm a spot as one of the 2025 Law360 Complex Financial Instruments Groups of the Year. Michael Urschel and Kelly Mellecker, who co-lead Kirkland's complex securitizations practice group, said they were given a unique opportunity to build out a team at the world's largest law firm nearly two years ago. Urschel joined the firm from Milbank LLP and recruited Mellecker from her role as a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Mellecker was Metronet's banker and Urschel was her outside counsel. Mellecker said she realized the monthly payments the company received from its internet service subscribers were "like a royalty" that, combined, could be developed into a new asset class. "So I'd been working with Metronet for years, setting up this program in this entire asset class, and then, to switch over and be their lawyer and give them advice from the legal side, knowing all the background and having worked with their team for years, was just awesome," Mellecker said. "I had never really thought about going back to a law firm, but this was the opportunity of a lifetime to help build out this practice from the ground floor." Urschel said he had "built out what was, at the time, the largest lender-side, esoteric, [asset-backed securities] practice, and Kelly was a leader of digital infrastructure securitization at Goldman." "So I think this is a fun time for structured finance and it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Urschel said. Urschel said there are 35 to 40 lawyers in the "core group," but as transactions proceed, colleagues from other practices are tapped to lend their expertise in areas such as infrastructure, intellectual property and tax. Mellecker said lawyers involved in complex, structured transactions used to be "the nerds sitting in the basement. Nobody really knew what we were doing." "But as the practice has grown and people are understanding the benefits structured finance can bring, we're seeing so much integration with the rest of the firm," Mellecker said. Urschel added that "the reason this works so well here at Kirkland is because we're not trying to be everything to everyone in structured finance, we're trying to be at the apex of the highest-value, targeted, tactical structured finance opportunities that our sponsor clients need." The Kirkland team is helping clients use structured finance to fund mergers and acquisitions and artificial intelligence infrastructure, and to find additional liquidity in projects across industries, Urschel and Mellecker said. Another successful deal handled by members of Kirkland's team involved representing Sunnova Energy, a solar company with roughly 440,000 residential customers, in a $10 billion restructuring. The group helped the company through voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings with complex debt securitizations as it faced some economic volatility, above-target inflation and prolonged high-interest rates in 2023. Urschel said the firm has represented Diversified Energy Co. in a number of transactions that involve "securitizations of revenue streams coming out of oil and gas wells." Last year, the team advised Diversified on the closing of an asset-backed securitization refinancing, the firm said. The deal included an improved hedging profile that created enhanced margins and cash flows. Kirkland's work with Diversified is representative of how the structured finance team integrates with other groups in the firm, including M&A, debt finance and energy. The team also advised Switch — an all-renewable data center company that is among the fastest-growing in the market — in securitized financing transactions, Mellecker said. The financing added two data centers to the existing asset-backed securitization master trust facility, lowering the cost of capital for the company's stabilized assets via the investment-grade structured finance markets, the firm said. Mellecker said Switch was the "first enterprise colocation data center operator to set up a trust like that," and that the Kirkland team has been doing a lot of work "innovating" in the data center space from a structured finance market perspective. "It's a really interesting space where people are able to still push the envelope and make innovations that are tailored to their specific business models," Mellecker said. Urschel said the team's mission is to "be at the highest value of structured finance for our sponsor and asset management clients." "Our goal is to be the thought leaders in the market, coming up with whatever the next exciting structured finance opportunity is for our clients," Urschel said, adding that the group has been involved in setting up financing for graphics processing units, which are the chips used for artificial intelligence. "We are finding ways to finance incredibly large pools of capital for AI development, both on the data center side and on the GPU and chip equipment side," Urschel said. "We're typically doing the transaction that figures it out for the first time, and that's when it's special for us, special for our client, unique to the market — bringing something new to solve a business problem with structured finance."

Jan 28

4 min

Kirkland & Ellis advised TPG on the financing for its acquisition of a majority stake in Sabre Industries, Inc., a provider of engineered critical infrastructure solutions for power utilities, telecom companies and data centers, from Blackstone. TPG will make the investment through TPG Rise Climate, the firm’s dedicated climate investing platform. Funds managed by Blackstone Energy Transition Partners, which first invested in Sabre in 2021, will retain a significant minority stake and continue Blackstone’s partnership with the company. The deal, which was announced February 6, 2026, is expected to close by Q2 2026, subject to customary approvals and closing conditions. Read the transaction press release The team included debt finance lawyers Scott Rolnik, Lauren Nickoloff, Shelby Lindholm and Emily Barber; structured finance lawyers Michael Urschel and Brandon Karas; and tax lawyer Jared Rusman.

Feb 6

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis advised Blackstone on AI infrastructure company Firmus’ US$10 billion debt financing facility, led by funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities, Blackstone Credit & Insurance, and affiliated funds, with participation from Coatue. The financing will support the next phase of Project Southgate, enabling the national rollout of Firmus’ AI Factory platform based on NVIDIA’s DSX reference architecture to meet accelerating global demand for high-performance compute. The transaction was announced February 9, 2026. Read the transaction press release The Kirkland team included structured finance lawyers Thomas Prommer, Michael Urschel, Aaqib Mahmood, Suril Patel, Emma Tall and Wilson Carneiro; debt finance lawyers Michelle Williamson, Patrick Loughery, Charlie Doyle, Jacob Sims, Katie Schneller and Heidi Yin; corporate lawyers Kemal Hawa, Darren Fernandez, Anu Reddy, Brendan Civitello, Jonathan Laifman, Joseph Kunnirickal, Josh Pincus and Josh Stout; tax lawyers Jon Nelsen and Claire Oxford; litigation lawyers Cori Lable and Weng Keong Kok; investment funds ERISA lawyer Jack Bernstein; and investment funds lawyer Joseph Lifsics.

Feb 11

1 min

Kirkland & Ellis represented Oncourse Home Solutions (OHS), a leading provider of home infrastructure warranty agreements, on the successful closing of its inaugural $1.655 billion whole business securitization issuance. The transaction, which closed February 13, 2026, is believed to be the largest non-QSR (quick-service restaurant) whole business securitization issuance ever completed. This landmark deal represents the first-ever securitization of home infrastructure warranty agreements, introducing a new asset class to the securitization market. The notes are secured by substantially all of the revenue-generating assets of OHS, including home infrastructure warranty agreements, partnership agreements and contractor agreements related to OHS's home infrastructure warranty business. OHS is a leading nationwide provider of home infrastructure warranty agreements to a highly diverse population of residential consumers across the United States. The Series 2026-1/2 Term Notes were issued in multiple classes, including $515 million of Series 2026-1 Class A-2 Notes, $685 million of Series 2026-2 Class A-2 Notes, $90 million of Series 2026-1 Class B Notes, and $40 million of Series 2026-2 Class B Notes. The issuance also included (i) a variable funding facility via the $300 million of Series 2026-1 Class A-1-V Notes, which will provide working and growth capital to OHS, and (ii) $25 million of Series 2026-1 Class A-1-L Notes, which will provide additional liquidity support to the noteholders. To optimize distribution, the term notes were offered under both 144A and 4a2 formats. The Class A-2 notes received investment grade ratings from both Moody's and Kroll Bond Rating Agency. Read the transaction press release The Kirkland team included structured finance lawyers Evan Berman, Kelly Mellecker, Michael Urschel, Marc Kassis, Jeff Zhou, Margaret O’Connor, Phil Champagne, Aaqib Mahmood, Emma Tall and Suril Patel; tax lawyers Jon Nelsen, Jon Herlin and Weiwei Chen; debt finance lawyer Judah Batist; investment funds ERISA lawyer Joseph Lifsics; and technology & IP transactions lawyer Camilo Mesa.

Feb 20

1 min