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Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Sidley Austin have bagged key roles on Blackstone’s $36bn (£19bn) acquisition of US office building owner Equity Office Properties Trust – the largest leveraged buy-out ever.

Simpson Thacher is advising regular client Blackstone. The elite New York firm has advised the private equity giant on the acquisitions of around a dozen acquisitions of public real estate companies in the last two and a half years, worth around $76bn (£40bn). Sidley is representing Chicago-based Equity Office.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton also landed a role on the deal – also the largest-ever acquisition of a real estate company – acting for lenders including Goldman Sachs and Bear Stearns.

The deal trumps the $33bn (£18bn) buy-out of hospital chain HCA, which saw buy-out giants Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity club together to fund the acquisition in August.

Simpson Thacher was lead adviser to the buyers on that deal, while New York giants Sullivan & Cromwell and Shearman & Sterling also bagged roles.

Wall Street lawyers are confident 2006 will prove to be a record year for M&A in the US, where private equity deals have continued to be a key driver.

Other headline deals this year include Weil Gotshal & Manges and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz advising on the $22bn (£11.6bn) buy-out of energy giant Kinder Morgan, the largest ever management buy-out, which also took place in August.

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