Blackstone’s Kirkland Billings Break $100 Million Mark (1)

Blackstone Inc. paid $101.3 million in legal fees to Kirkland & Ellis last year, the company disclosed in a securities filing Friday.

The payday is more than double the $41.6 million that Kirkland earned during 2023, according to prior filings by Blackstone. The New York-based alternative asset manager and private equity firm discloses its payments to the law firm because Kirkland partner Reginald Brown has been a member of its board since 2020. Kirkland was the largest law firm in the world by revenue last year.

The 10-K filing shows that Blackstone’s longtime chief legal officer, John Finley, received nearly $17.2 million in total compensation during 2024. Finley is a former co-chair of the mergers and acquisitions practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. He joined Blackstone in 2010.

Vikrant “Vik” Sawhney, a former Simpson associate, is now Blackstone’s chief administrative officer and global head of institutional client solutions. Sawhney earned nearly $22.2 million in total compensation last year, according to Blackstone. He and Finley’s pay packages are weighted with stock awards.

Finley owns Blackstone shares valued at more than $71 million, per Bloomberg data. Securities filings show that within the past year he’s sold off more than $18.3 million in Blackstone stock.

Simpson and Kirkland both advised Blackstone last year on its $8.8 billion buy of software provider Smartsheet. Simpson also scored a role advising Blackstone on another $4 billion deal to take private Retail Opportunity Investment Corp.

Kirkland, however, most recently counseled Blackstone on the formation of a $5.6 billion energy-focused fund and its $1.6 billion acquisition last year of U.K.-based music rights investor Hipgnosis Songs Fund Ltd. Kirkland also represented Blackstone on its purchase of health care consulting firm Chartis Group.

Kirkland’s transactional prowess isn’t the only reason the firm has grown closer to Blackstone. Jonathan Gray, the company’s president and COO, was a high school classmate of Kirkland chairman Jon Ballis.

Blackstone previously disclosed that it paid $53.4 million to Kirkland in 2022 and almost $70 million in 2021. Blackstone declined to discuss the firm.

Brown, a crisis management and government investigations expert who joined Kirkland in 2020 from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, received about $362,000 in total compensation for his Blackstone board work last year.

KKR & Co. Inc., a competitor to Blackstone, hired former Simpson partner Kathryn King Sudol as its legal chief in 2022. KKR didn’t list King among its six highest-paid executives in a 10-K filing of its own late Friday.