Bio

David Patrick Eich is a founding partner of the Asia offices of Kirkland & Ellis. Resident in Hong Kong, he helps lead the Firm’s global private equity practice in Asia, representing financial and strategic sponsors and their affiliates in multi-jurisdictional leveraged buyouts and acquisitions, growth equity investments, joint ventures, fund formations and other complex private equity and corporate transactions. Qualified in the U.S. as an attorney and in the U.K. and Hong Kong as a solicitor (he is also a registered foreign lawyer in Germany), David has closed many deals around the world from his offices in Chicago, London, Munich and Hong Kong since 1994. David has represented in Asia, among many other financial sponsors, Advantage Partners, Apollo Group, Bain Capital, Blue Point Capital Partners, Cartesian Capital Group, Golden Gate Capital, GTCR Golder Rauner, KKR, Limetree Capital Partners, Oaktree Capital Management, Paul Capital Partners, Sequoia Capital, Silver Lake Partners and Silver Lake Sumeru. Over the last decade, David has regularly been recognized by the leading directories and publications in Asia and Europe as a top private equity lawyer: In 2015, David was recognized as a leading M&A lawyer by Who’s Who Legal: Corporate—M&A and Governance. In 2014, for the second consecutive year, David was ranked as a band one private equity lawyer by Chambers Asia-Pacific which notes that he has an “enviable portfolio of funds clients,” and he “knows his stuff.” In 2013, David was ranked as a band one private equity lawyer by Chambers Asia-Pacific which described him as a “supreme attorney who belongs at the top of the list.” In 2012, David was recognized by The Lawyer as one of the “Hot 100” lawyers, one of four in Asia. Kirkland was named “Private Equity Law Firm of the Year in Hong Kong” in the 2012 Legal Awards by Corporate INTL Magazine. In 2011, China Business Law Journal recognized two deals in which David was involved as 2011 Deals of the Year, namely Bain Capital’s going private of China Fire (in Private Equity and Venture Capital) and Koor’s sale of Makhteshim Agan (in China Outbound M&A). In addition, David was recognized as one of the “50 Best Lawyers in Hong Kong” by Corporate INTL in 2011. In 2011, IFLR1000 2011 named David a “Leading Individual Lawyer” in Hong Kong, noting that “[o]ne reason for client retention is the experienced and relevant advice that star partner and rainmaker David Patrick Eich offers on complex buyouts under novel situations…‘David has been an excellent counsel on many deals,’ says a large private equity client…‘He has a very balanced approach, is very commercially savvy and will run through walls to meet the client’s needs.’” In addition, IFLR1000 2010 noted that “Kirkland & Ellis has one of the most promising outlooks in private equity among the stacks of US firms that entered the Greater China market in the last few years...[working] with more than 50 private equity and asset management firms in the region.” In 2010, Chambers again named David a “Leading Individual” in each of Private Equity (China/Hong Kong) and Investment Funds (Hong Kong), noting that he “has tremendous experience in representing private equity clients across three continents” and is “highly intelligent and well rounded, with broad knowledge of many different areas, and very good at getting to the crux of the issue quickly.” In 2009, Chambers named David a “Leading Individual” in Hong Kong in each of “Private Equity: Buyouts” and “Investment Funds,” noting that clients praise David and the Kirkland Hong Kong team for “valuable local perspective and quality global funds advice” delivered by “responsive lawyers” with a “can-do attitude and business-savvy approach.” The Legal 500 noted in 2009 that, led by David, Kirkland “has drawn on its international reputation in this sector to form a private equity-focused Hong Kong office.” In 2008, The Legal 500 noted that, led by David, Kirkland “has brought its world-leading private equity practice to Hong Kong.” The Chambers & Partners Asia Guide in 2008 cited David and the Firm’s private equity fund formation practice in Hong Kong as “the one to watch” and “set to become a major investment player in the region.” In 2008, Asia Legal Business recognized a Kirkland team including David in the Southeast Asia Law Awards for the “Singapore Deal of the Year” and the “Singapore M&A Deal of the Year” in connection with the $2.3 billion going-private transaction of Kirkland’s client dual-listed STATS ChipPAC Ltd. in 2007. The Lawyer named Kirkland “International Law Firm of the Year” in July 2007. Asian-Counsel recognized a Kirkland team including David for “Deal of the Year 2006” for its work on the $2.1 billion takeover of OYL Industries Berhad, a Malaysian public company, by Daikin Industries Ltd., Japan. David was named one of the “Hot 100” lawyers in 2005 by The Lawyer. David was also recognized by Legal Business as one of five private equity lawyers in the “Finest 50 Rainmakers of 2004.” David has been an Adjunct Professor and a member of the Lawyer Advisory Committee of the School of Transnational Law at Peking University in Shenzhen, China. He was a founding sponsor of the Tsinghua University China Center of Financial Research Private Equity and Venture Capital Institute in Beijing, China, and has been a member of its Executive Committee; he was also a founding sponsor of the London Business School Private Equity Institute, which became the Coller Institute of Private Equity, in London, England. David has written and spoken about private equity widely, including in annual lectures to classes in the London Business School M.B.A. program and as a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, where he taught “Fundamentals of Leveraged Buyouts” (with Stephen Oetgen, General Counsel of Golden Gate Capital Partners) from 2008–2013. He also has been a lecturer on Asian private equity and Chinese M&A at the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy. Prior to his work in Asia, David was involved in establishing the Firm’s offices in London and Munich, now known for their strength in European and global private equity transactions. He returned to London from 2014–2017 to continue to expand the Firm’s private equity practice in Europe. On a leave of absence from Kirkland, David was Deputy District Attorney of Outagamie County, Wisconsin, from 1999–2000; he was a Public Service Special Prosecutor there from 2000–2001. David began his career with Kirkland in Chicago in 1994 after completing a two-year federal district court clerkship for the Hon. Robert W. Warren, Senior United States District Judge (Eastern District of Wisconsin). David graduated with an A.B., magna cum laude, in Government, from Harvard College in 1988, and with a J.D., Honors, Parker Program in International Law, from Columbia Law School in 1992.