Sidley Austin hired long-time Kirkland & Ellis partner John Muno in a bid to bolster its fund formation capacity to compete with Big Law’s top private equity players.
Muno is joining Sidley in Chicago as a partner in its investment funds group, the firm announced Tuesday. The veteran deals lawyer has advised Thoma Bravo and Mainsail Partners, among other clients, on fundraising efforts this year.
Law firms at the top of the private equity world, such as Kirkland, Ropes & Gray, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, have deep rosters of lawyers who focus on fund formations and those who steer transactions. Private equity fund formation work often commands attractive rates and creates opportunities for firms to establish long-term relationships that grow with the funds, said Kent Zimmermann, a principal at law firm consultancy Zeughauser Group.
“Sidley’s rapid growth in both PE fund formation and transactional work fuels its ascent into the ranks of the market leaders in this space,” Zimmermann said.
Chicago-founded Sidley has hovered in and around the top 20 of the M&A leaderboard for the past decade or so.
The firm has added roughly 20 M&A and private equity partners over the past year, including from Cravath Swaine & Moore, Milbank LLP, Fried Frank, Jones Day, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Weil Gotshal & Manges. Muno and other hires—such as David Perkins, Cravath’s former private equity co-leader—joined Sidley after two decades or more at leading deals firms.
Private equity work is the bread and butter of several of the world’s top deals law firms. Sidley’s stable of clients includes Apollo, Arsenal Capital Partners, Clearlake Capital, Stonepeak, Stone Point Capital, Towerbrook, and WCAS.
The firm’s lawyers advised on more than $76 billion in M&A transactions over the past 12 months, and another $48 billion in private equity deals, according to Bloomberg data. M&A powerhouse Kirkland steered more than $372 billion worth of M&A deals during the same time, landing another $415 billion in private equity transactions.
“What [Sidley’s] done in their PE and M&A space is amazing,” Muno said, “and [I’m] looking to help them duplicate that in the PE fund space.”
‘Core’ Experience
Muno advises private equity fund sponsors in connection with structuring, forming and operating private equity funds and related management companies.
He advised Thoma Bravo on the closing of its first European-focused fund that totaled €1.8 billion in capital commitments earlier this year. He also led the Kirkland team that advised growth equity firm Mainsail Partners on its fundraise of $1.535 billion, the largest in the company’s history.
He has represented over a 20-year career the likes of Blue Sea Capital, Gemspring Capital, CIVC Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners, Mill Point Capital, Nautic Partners, Peak Rock Capital, Platte River Equity, Thompson Street Capital Partners, and Wind Point Partners.
Muno brings “more of the core private equity funds formation experience and we’ve been growing that,” said Brian Fahrney, chair of the firm’s executive committee and former head of its M&A and private equity group.
The firm picked up Shane Goudey from Cooley in June 2024 to lead its venture capital fund formation practice from Palo Alto. This year’s additions include Mathew Eapen from Kirkland in Boston and Ed Gander, who joined with two other Weil partners, and now leads Sidley’s private funds group in London.
“The ultimate client experience that we look to have in private equity is to be a solid one-stop shop for a client,” Muno said, “where we can provide a seamless experience for our clients as they transition from fundraise to investments and then divestitures as they exit the investments is the ultimate goal for the client.”
Muno’s move was brokered by Mark Jungers and Meredith Frank of global legal recruitment firm CenterPeak.
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