© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
Senior Writer for The Texas Lawbook
The final report card has arrived for M&A lawyers and investment bankers in Texas: 2012 was a great year.
Texas corporations announced 428 mergers, acquisitions, divestiture of assets, joint ventures and spinoffs last year – an 18 percent increase over 2011 and only five deals shy of the record set in 2007, according to new data released Friday by mergermarket media, an independent global M&A research firm affiliated with the Financial Times.
The 133 transactions announced by Texas businesses during the fourth quarter of 2012 were the most ever for any three-month period. Q4 included two huge deals – T-Mobile’s $9 billion acquisition of Dallas-based MetroPCS and Freeport-McMoRan’s $10.7 billion purchase of Plains Exploration, which is based in Houston.
Mergermarket data shows that the 428 deals in 2012 had a combined value of $138.8 billion.
“Texas had a huge fourth quarter, thanks to big private sellers motivated by capital gains tax increases,” says Chad Watt, an analyst for mergermarket in Texas.
“The energy business continues to boom in West Texas, South Texas and increasingly in parts of East Texas,” says Watt. “The entrepreneurial independent explorers and private-equity backed teams continue to find new ways and places to create value that will be coveted by larger corporations.”
The energy sector continues to dominate the Texas market. Nearly one-third of all M&A transactions during 2012 involved oil, gas, utilities or mining. But those deals were Texas-sized, accounting for more than $91 billion. The number of M&A deals involving Texas technology companies also increased last year.
Vinson & Elkins led all law firms in number of transactions (65), followed by Latham & Watkins (40), Fulbright & Jaworski (39), Baker Botts (34) and Jones Day (34). Kirkland & Ellis, which doesn’t even have an office in Texas, was sixth (33).
Bracewell & Giuliani was number one in terms of deal value ($47.8 billion). The Houston-based firm handled ConocoPhillips’ spinoff of Phillip 66, which was valued at $20.7 billion.
Twenty-five of the deals involved transactions with a value of $1 billion or more, while 381 of the deals had a value between $5 million and $500 million.
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