Kirkland & Ellis advised Norwest Equity Partners (NEP) and Norwest Mezzanine Partners (NMP) in connection with their separation from Wells Fargo. NEP, which was founded in 1961, and NMP will now operate under a single independent asset manager named Norwest Capital Advisors (Norwest Capital), which has been registered as an investment adviser with the SEC. In connection with the separation and the registration of Norwest Capital, Wells Fargo, in its capacity as the primary institutional limited partner of NEP and NMP, sold approximately $2 billion in investments in certain NEP and NMP funds to a group of premier global private equity and private capital investors. Following the spin-out, the NEP platform will continue to seek to invest in growing middle-market companies primarily across the business services, consumer services, consumer products and industrials sectors. The NMP platform, which partners with private equity sponsors to create subordinated debt and equity capital solutions, will continue to seek to provide creative and flexible investment solutions.

The Kirkland team was led by corporate partner Jai Agrawal and investment funds partners Sean Malone, Samuel Weber, Victor Levy and John Senior, with support from tax partners Dave Grenker and Phillip Cooke and regulatory partners Norm Champ, Michael Chu and Xiao-Hong Jing.