Kirkland & Ellis LLP represents CEB Inc. (NYSE: CEB), the industry leader in providing best practice and talent management insights, which announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement whereby Gartner Inc. (NYSE: IT), the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, will acquire all of the outstanding shares of CEB in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $2.6 billion. The transaction has a total enterprise value of approximately $3.3 billion, including Gartner’s assumption of approximately $0.7 billion in CEB net debt. Together, Gartner and CEB will employ more than 13,000 associates serving clients in more than 100 countries worldwide. The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close in the first half of 2017. More details on the transaction are available here. The Kirkland team included corporate partners Mark Director and Andrew Herman and associate Meredith Klionsky, debt finance partner Ashley Gregory, capital markets partner Christian Nagler, executive compensation partner Mike Krasnovsky, tax partner Thomas Evans, antitrust and competition partners Mark Kovner and Marin Boney, technology and IP transactions partner Lisa Samenfeld, employee benefits partner Matthew Antinossi and litigation partner James Gillespie.