The Texas Lawbook hit the jackpot four years ago when we landed Claire Poole as our M&A writer. Claire had written about corporate transactions in Texas for more than 16 years for The Deal and other national publications.
This month, The Lawbook got lucky again when Anna Butler joined our news team to lead our deal coverage. Anna will take over the Corporate Deal Tracker Weekly Roundup and oversee the Corporate Deal Tracker database, which documents every M&A transaction and every securities offering handled by lawyers in Texas.
Anna most recently worked as director of operations for Patterson Thoma Family Office, a Dallas-based firm specializing in private equity and debt investments.
For five years, she was at the Dallas Business Journal, where she wrote and edited articles about corporate transactions and served as the DBJ’s managing editor, where she led day-to-day newsroom operations.
A 2011 graduate of Wake Forest University and a 2013 graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York, Anna has a love for business news and dealmaking.
“Every deal has its own story, but not every deal is worth a story,” Anna says. “It’s a mix: Who were the companies involved and how did the deal come about? Who were the key players? Is it someone new in Texas, or a veteran who never steers a client wrong? Then there are other considerations, particularly what’s happening within the sector being covered. There could be situations where a lower-middle market midstream deal is more newsworthy than it would otherwise be, warranting a deeper dive.”
“When it comes to Texas, the complexity and variety of the deals and legal work are unparalleled outside of New York,” she says. “I think the momentum coming out of 2020 makes it a great time to join The Texas Lawbook.”
With the addition of Anna to the team, The Lawbook plans to take our coverage of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures and securities offerings to the next level. We will include more details on the financial advisors involved in transactions. The Corporate Deal Tracker database will be expanded and updated much more frequently.
And we plan to publish more articles when deals close that take readers behind the scenes on how the transactions came together and the obstacles that were overcome to get deals to the finish line.
The Lawbook team asks that you continue to keep our colleague and good friend Claire in your thoughts and prayers as she continues to recover.
The Lawbook sat down virtually with Anna and her beagle, Finnston Furchill, to help you get to know her a little better.
Lawbook: Tell us about where you were born and how you grew up.
Anna Butler: A seventh generation Texan, I was born and grew up in central Austin – when the state capital was growing from a quirky college town to a tech mecca and on into a boomtown. Summers, spring breaks and holidays were spent among the cypresses along the Guadalupe in Hunt or in East Texas beneath the pines. Most of my childhood memories involve my four brothers and sisters, with the fondest ones tied to Longhorn football games, picking blueberries and blackberries in Jacksonville and annual trips to Sea Island, Georgia. The five of us are still thick as thieves.
Lawbook: How did you decide you wanted to be a journalist?
Anna: I was not the kid who grew up dead-set on becoming a journalist and taking on the yoke of the industry in general, but I always loved reading and writing. I came up on the business side of media, interning with Texas Monthly and holding roles in advertising and marketing before shifting to the content side. My first taste of editing and writing was tied to lifestyle, rather than news, with experience in luxury travel, cookbooks and food writing.
Lawbook: Tell us about the circumstances that brought you to Dallas.
Anna: I’d moved back to Austin after living in New York for a few years and attending culinary school and did not feel like I’d found a niche in my hometown. The Dallas Business Journal was looking for an associate editor and two of my siblings lived in the city, so it seemed like it was worth a shot. I was surprised by how quickly I fell in love with business news. There’s something special about being able to examine specific points in time through a narrow lens and connect dealmakers to one’s audience.
Lawbook: What are some of the most important stories that you have covered?
Anna: I am most proud of the work we did at the Business Journal at the outset of the pandemic in 2020 as readers sought actionable intelligence. The predictability of the news cycle was in disarray for months with late-night SEC filings and news tips involving as many as 90,000 jobs in jeopardy, and our team stayed in the trenches. The importance of local media was never more on display.
As an editor for years, it’s easier for me to point to favorite stories I worked on with reporters. Personally, I’ve always loved writing profiles. I count interviews with Jerry Jones Jr., Chef Tim Love and the team behind Blue Roads Solutions that I worked on with the editor at the Business Journal among my favorites.
Lawbook: What facts or circumstances in an M&A transaction make it newsworthy?
Anna: Every deal has its own story, but not every deal is worth a story, if that makes sense. It’s a mix: Who were the companies involved and how did the deal come about? Who were the key players? Is it someone new in Texas, or a veteran who never steers a client wrong? Then there are other considerations, particularly what’s happening within the sector being covered. There could be situations where a lower-middle market midstream deal is more newsworthy than it would otherwise be, warranting a deeper dive.
Lawbook: What advice do you have for law firms to make it easier for them to have their M&A transactions covered?
Anna: It’s all about access and transparency. Who wants to read a story that’s sparse on details, only has canned answers or tells you something you already know?
Lawbook: What can certain law firms do to make that easier on you?
Anna: Ensure stakeholders and key players in transactions are available in a timely fashion when there is breaking news. Also, don’t be shy about reaching out before a news event comes around – it’s better for both of us to build rapport and trust as soon as we can.
Lawbook: What are your pet peeves in writing about M&A transactions?
Anna: When I can’t get information beyond a news release, or worse, it’s only information involving the principals, but not additional third-party counsel or financial advisors. M&A is a team sport: We want to include everyone.