In a major move to shore up its Texas transactional practice, Dykema announced Monday that it is doubling the headcount of its Houston office with the lateral addition of five attorneys from Kane Russell Coleman Logan and two from Hirsch & Westheimer.
Bracewell, Arnold & Porter Snag Partners from King & Spalding
Houston trial attorney Abby Parsons was hired away by Arnold & Porter, while finance partner Susan Ormand Berry lateraled to Bracewell.
Latham’s Gamechanging 15 Years in Texas: How The Firm’s Houston Office Wrote the Playbook for National Firms to Storm the State
The Houston office of Latham & Watkins had not been open for a year when Ryan Maierson experienced a significant realization. The office opened in February 2010, and as the year progressed, he and the other partners at Baker Botts began to marvel at how easily this “non-native” firm from Los Angeles integrated itself into Texas’s established transactional law environment.
Other national firms had previously entered the Texas market. However, with Latham — the second most profitable law firm in the world — something felt different. In less than a year, Latham had achieved what no other national firm had managed to do: it instilled a sense of fear in the long-established Texas firms that had previously dominated corporate law in the Lone Star State.
Fifteen years later, this is the story of how Latham changed the game in Texas.
Viper Energy Acquires Diamondback Upstream Assets for $4.45B
Kirkland & Ellis advised Diamondback while Hunton AK counseled Viper’s audit committee in a transaction that includes 69.6 million shares of Viper’s operating subsidiary and $1 billion in cash. The deal is designed to reduce Diamondback debt accrued in its $26 billion purchase of Endeavor Energy Resources last year.
DOJ Sues to Block HPE’s $14B Acquisition of Juniper Networks
The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in Northern California Thursday seeking to block the $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks by Texas-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company. Although investigated and recommended during the Biden Administration, the lawsuit is the first major regulatory litigation by the incoming Trump Administration.
Steve Gill Heading to Skadden
A 23-year veteran of Vinson & Elkins is leaving the firm for Skadden, his new firm confirmed Monday morning. The move is a big one. Gill has been co-head of V&E’s corporate practice group and has been involved in some of the firm’s largest transactions in recent years.
M&A in 2024: A Big Bite for Small Deals
The roster of M&A deals in 2024 suggests that we should be thankful for small things. Or, at least, small deals, according to the Corporate Deal Tracker.
From Energy to Technology: The Evolving Landscape of Texas-Related Billion-Dollar Deals
Last year, there were 135 Texas-related deals (one that involves a party headquartered in Texas or advised by Texas-based lawyers) submitted to The Texas Lawbook‘s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker that reached or broke the $1 billion barrier — some of them by a lot. The deals had an aggregate value of $627.2 billion, slightly below 2023 but much higher than in 2021, the record year of rebounding from the pandemic, against which many firms have measured the market in recent years.
Top Deals of 2024: When AI Met M&A (and Everything Else)
This is our list, a roster of transactions that caught our attention this year among the more than 2,000 Texas-related transactions submitted to the Corporate Deal Tracker in 2024. These “Texas-related” deals are transactions that involve either Texas-headquartered parties, Texas-based lawyers or, better yet, both.
P66 Buys EPIC NGL Assets for $2.2B
The deal, which includes two fractionalization facilities and more than 1,300 miles of pipeline, expands P66 capacity to move NGL from production points across the Permian Basin to Gulf Coast refineries.