Kyle C. Krpata

Silicon Valley

Corporate

Kyle C. Krpata has wide ranging corporate law practice, specializing in private equity transactions, public and private mergers and acquisitions and venture capital transactions.

He has spent the entirety of his 26-year legal career with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP, is a partner of the firm's Silicon Valley office and was recently elevated this year to co-head of the firm's U.S. Private Equity practice.

Over the years, his dealmaking skills have helped California become the capital of innovation across many industries. He has been the go-to transactional lawyer for numerous private equity firms and companies such as Getty Images, SoftBank Group, Blackstone, The Gores Group, TPG and TCV.

"We've actually been working with Gores all the way back to their first private equity fund, so I've been working with them for about 15 years," he said. "Our fund formation group helped them raise their private equity funds and we've represented them in a variety of transactions for a long period of time."

Since 2020 alone, Krpata has advised The Gores Group and its affiliates on seven multibillion-dollar de-SPAC transactions, totaling approximately $55 billion in total deal value.

In 2022, he helped Gores Guggenheim, Inc. in its $20 billion business combination with global electric vehicle manufacturer Polestar.

"It was a very complicated transaction and one of the largest SPAC transactions at the time," he said. "There were a lot of cross border issues ... the ultimate public company was a United Kingdom entity, so there was an incredible amount of structuring that went on with respect to this transaction."

In 2021, he helped Gores Holdings V, Inc. in its $8.5 billion business combination with Ardagh Metal Packaging, a global supplier of recyclable metal beverage cans.

He is also a frequent advisor to SoftBank and its affiliates. In 2022, he structured a $2.1 billion sale of SoftBank's equity ownership stake in GM Cruise Holdings LLC, a developer of self-driving cars.

He is currently working with SoftBank to restructure over $2.4 billion of WeWork Inc.'s debt and provide new financing to facilitate the execution of the office space company's business plan. This includes the cancellation, conversion to equity and/or exchange for debt for about $1.5 billion of WeWork's debt and certain related transactions.

--Devon Belcher