ONEOK announced on Aug. 30 that it received a minority investment of $9 billion from private equity firm Apollo. The Tulsa midstream company also said it has acquired the Permian Basin natural gas assets of private Fort Worth-based Brazos Midstream for $4.425 billion cash. ONEOK said it plans to use about $5 billion of the investment to repay debt.
Latham & Watkins provided counsel to ONEOK on each of these transactions with large national teams led from Houston. Partners Ryan Maierson, Nick Dhesi and Clayton Heery advised on the acquistion; Maierson, Heery and David Miller led the team that worked on the investment; and Maierson, Miller and Sam Rettew led the counsel on the debt transaction.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld served as outside legal advisor to Brazos Midstream, and Milbank provided counsel to the PE firm from New York led by John Franchini, Dan Bartfeld, Sean O’Neill and Benjamin Fidler.
“The acquisition expands our scale in the Permian Midland Basin, advances our integrated wellhead-to-water strategy and strengthens connectivity across our natural gas and NGL value chain, positioning ONEOK to capture significant volume growth in one of the most economic and rapidly growing resource plays,” President and CEO Pierce H. Norton II said in a news release.
ONEOK said the acquired assets include about 600,000 acres in the Permian Midland Basin under long-term fixed-fee contracts supported by 14 active drilling rigs from producers including ExxonMobil, Diamondback Energy and Double Eagle.
The acquisition more than doubles ONEOK’s processing capacity in the Permian Basin to about 2.3 Bcf/d, including plants under construction, creating one of the largest integrated natural gas gathering and processing platforms in West Texas.
Latham lawyers who advised ONEOK from Houston include Ziyad Barghouthy, Victoria Wade, E.B. Nasir, Armaan Bhimani, Tim Fenn, Bryant Lee, Dominick Constantino, Pamela Kellet, Craig Kornreich, Catherine Lynch, Victoria Wade, Liem-Lucas Nguyen, Marvin Thiele, Chris Heasley, Nate Guerra, Gabriela Alvarez, Christina Schrantz and Casey Berger. From Austin, Carol Bale and William Brown.
Nearly a dozen Latham attorneys provided counsel from Washington, D.C., including Michele Anderson, Paul Dudek, Joel Trotter, Alex Cohen, Adam Kestenbaum, Peter Todaro, Caitlin Fitzpatrick, Tara Tavernia, Pat Nevins, Christina McLeod and Jecoliah Williams.
Jenny Lyubomudrova, Linda Xu, Jocelyn Wexler, Conor Adams and William Reed advised from New York; Jennifer Roy, Brian McCall and Eliane Bach from San Diego; John McGaraghan, Preeta Reddy, Michelle Gross, Ryleigh Chen and Eric Gonzalez in Silicon Valley; with Michelle Carpenter in L.A. and Laura Waller in Chicago.
ONEOK used Barclays as sole financial advisor on the acquisition and lead financial advisor on the investment with Lazard. Apollo tabbed RBC Capital Markets as its financial advisor.