Kirkland & Ellis counseled Ares Acquisition Corp., a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company, on its definitive business combination agreement with X Energy Reactor Co., LLC (X-energy), a leading developer of small modular nuclear reactors and fuel technology for clean energy generation. The combination will establish X-energy as a publicly-traded developer of a more advanced small modular reactor (SMR) and proprietary fuel that supports the transition to clean, affordable energy through enhanced safety, lower cost, scalability and broader industrial applications. The pre-money equity value is approximately $2 billion for X-energy with existing X-energy equity holders rolling 100 percent of their interests into the combined company. Supported by $1.2 billion of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and a growing pipeline of potential blue-chip global customers, X-energy is a frontrunner in the deployment of advanced SMRs across North America and Europe. Read the joint press release The Kirkland team was led by corporate partners Monica Shilling, and Dov Kogen and associates Casey Harless, Tammy Adereti and Allison Azarloza; capital markets partners Pippa Bond and Tommy Felix and associates John Kim, Aparna Bhattacharya, Mateo Garnica, Cash Malcolm, Sara Lampert and Meron Bayu; tax partners Anne Kim and Liam Murphy; and energy regulatory partner Drew Stuyvenberg.