Ever wonder who from Texas is representing the most businesses in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and joint ventures? The answer is simple:
White guys from Houston. And one in particular: Andy Calder.
New data from The Texas Lawbook’s Corporate Deal Tracker shows that more than half of the attorneys who led M&A deals last year are based in Houston and an even larger portion – 81 percent – are white men.
A great majority of the attorneys in the database are partners, a group which universally lacks women and minorities across the entire legal industry.
Women account for only 14 percent of the 368 M&A attorneys who are in the Corporate Deal Tracker’s 2016 database. Asian and Hispanic lawyers comprised nearly 3 percent of the lawyer pool. The least-represented group is African-Americans, which made up a scant 1.35 percent.
Due to the preeminence of energy deals in Texas M&A, Houston-based attorneys continued to dominate the amount of deal work among Texas lawyers. Lawyers from the “energy capital of the world” accounted for 55 percent of the 368 lawyers. Dallas was the second most-represented city, accounting for 35 percent. Only 7 percent are from Austin and 1.6 percent are from Fort Worth. The remaining 2 percent are from San Antonio, Amarillo, El Paso and Wichita Falls.
Naming Names
The most prolific lawyer of 2016 was Houston corporate partner Andy Calder of Kirkland & Ellis, who led or co-led 20 transactions with a combined value of $67 billion. Calder worked on two of the six largest transactions of 2016, both part of Energy Future Holdings’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy exit plan: the $18.7 billion sale of Oncor to NextEra Energy and the $33 billion spin-off of Texas Competitive Energy Holding, Luminant and TXU Energy. (See profile of Calder for full details.)
(Editor’s Note: The Corporate Deal Tracker gives one full credit to lawyers who led an M&A transaction for the buyer or the seller and a 0.5 credit to each of two lawyers from the same firm who co-lead a deal. Lawyers representing parties other than the buyer or seller, such as a financial advisor, do not receive credit under the “Lead Lawyers” category.)
Ranked second in the Corporate Deal Tracker chart is Kirkland partner Anthony Speier, who led or co-led 15 deals. The Calder-Speier duo dethroned Akin Gump’s Chris LaFollette and John Goodgame, who ranked No. 1 and and No. 2, respectively, in 2015. The Houston office neighbors still had a strong year, ranking 12th and 14th in 2016. Goodgame represented EOG Resources in its $2.5 billion acquisition of Yates Petroleum and he advised NGP in its $4.4 billion transaction with Range Resources.
Mike O’Leary of Andrews Kurth Kenyon, a mainstay on the CDT leaderboard, ranked third with 10 transactions valued at $4.9 billion. In 2015, O’Leary ranked eighth for M&A and first for combined M&A and securities offerings deal count.
A newcomer to the Corporate Deal Tracker rankings is Weil, Gotshal & Manges partner Jim Griffin, who relocated to Dallas from the firm’s Silicon Valley office last February. Griffin was the lead legal adviser in nine deals valued at $38 billion, including LinkedIn’s $26.2 billion sale to Microsoft and Oracle’s $9.3 billion acquisition of NetSuite.
Two partners at Vinson & Elkins – Bryan Loocke and John B. Connally – are ranked fifth and sixth. Loocke represented Brigham Resources in its $2.4 billion sale of Permian Basin assets to Diamondback Energy, while Connally advised RSP Permian in its acquisition of Silver Hill Energy for $2.4 billion.
Only two women attorneys – LaFollette and Thompson & Knight’s Sarah McLean – ranked in the top 20.
LaFollette led six deals valued at $802 million, including her representation of the conflicts committee of Rose Rock Midstream in the Tulsa company’s $391 sale to SemGroup and her similar role for California-based Landmark Infrastructure in its $157 million purchase of assets from an affiliate of its sponsor, Landmark Dividend.
McLean led six deals valued at $2.3 billion, including the $888 million EnCap Investments divestiture to Marathon Oil, as well as EnCap’s $350 million purchase of Lucid Energy Group assets.
All things considered, there is a de facto minority group that is beginning to rise in the ranks of the M&A list: associates.
While the associates at many firms likely do a majority of the work on deals, a few (about 6.5 percent) are actually getting credit as lead attorneys.
Some are even leading a significant number of deals.
Jennie Simmons, an associate in Locke Lord’s Houston office in 2016, co-led five deals, all with undisclosed deal values, with partners Greg Hill or Bill Swanstrom. She handled four deals for private equity/investment firm clients doing business with energy, aviation and industrial cleaning services companies and one for Targa Resources in its purchase of midstream assets from Boardwalk Pipeline Partners. Simmons joined the Houston office of Hogan Lovells in March 2017.
Likewise, Gardere Wynne Sewell’s Chris Babcock, an associate in the firm’s Dallas office, co-led four deals in the manufacturing, chemicals, and legal services industries – two with partner Chris Converse and two with partner Alan Perkins.
Some associates even gained lead credit in the largest deals of the year. V&E’s Lande Spottswood co-led Sunoco’s $20 billion merger with Energy Transfer Partners – the fifth largest deal reported to the 2016 database – with two of V&E’s New York-based partners. The Houston attorney also co-led TPG’s $1.7 billion sale of Nexeo Solutions to WL Ross Holdings Corp. with Houston partner Keith Fullenweider. V&E promoted Spottswood to partner in January.
(Editor’s Note: Readers can find the full 2016 Corporate Deal Tracker data at the bottom of the Texas Lawbook homepage.)