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Prominent legal and investigative journalist Allen Pusey is a senior editor and writer at The Texas Lawbook.
Prior to joining The Lawbook, Pusey was the editor and publisher of the ABA Journal, which is the nation’s largest circulation legal publication. Before his decade with the Journal, Pusey spent 26 years as a reporter and editor at The Dallas Morning News, where he was a special projects editor and covered the Supreme Court of the United States.
A former director at the Center for Public Integrity, Pusey brings extraordinary experience and knowledge of the legal industry to The Texas Lawbook. Our readers are now the beneficiaries of his amazing talent as a writer and editor.
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Two major energy companies announced earnings Wednesday and both revealed upstream deal activity valued at more than $2 billion. ConocoPhillips announced a $1.3 billion sale of assets in the Anadarko Basin, which was advised by Haynes Boone.
The week ending Aug. 2 saw 17 transactions reporting values of $19 billion. You can compare that to last week's 15 deals for $3 billion or the 26 deals for $16 billion we reported this time last year. The news this week is the same news last week: It's all about AI infrastructure. The good news is that even those deals cut a healthy swath across emerging data-related business sectors. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
Marking their first investment in a $50 billion joint venture campaign announced last year, Energy Capital Partners and KKR said Friday they are investing $4 billion into the development of a data center campus in Bosque County, about 75 miles southwest of Fort Worth. Kirkland & Ellis advised on the JV.
MPLX said Friday it has agreed to pay $2.375 billion in cash to Houston-based Five Point Infrastructure for Northwind Delaware Holdings, a New Mexico sour gas gathering, treatment and processing service operating in the Permian Basin. Latham & Watkins advised Five Points on the transaction.
Seeking to expand its presence in the surge of data center development, Quanta Services, a Houston-based platform for industrial energy and power services, announced Thursday the completion of its acquisition of mechanical and plumbing specialists Dynamics Services for $1.35 billion. King & Spalding advised on the deal.
The week ending July 26 saw 15 transactions for just over $3 billion, which doesn't sound like much. The volume is akin to the week before, in which 14 deals were reported for $6 billion. But both pale against the 19 transactions for $16.4 billion reported last year. The plain truth is that transactions in M&A dwindled in Q2 and have stayed dwindled in the first few weeks of Q3. But take heart; Q2 was the weakest quarter in Texas M&A deals last year and the year before. But there was plenty of diversity in the mix.
The week ending July 18 saw 14 deals for $6 billion dollars. The week prior saw 15 deals for $13 billion and there were 15 deals for $16 billion reported during the same week last year. But consider the actual deals and you begin to sense a difference: a $25 billion data center deal that probably will be but really isn't yet; a flurry of placements aimed at flipping the switch on crypto assets; an IPO for a Japanese AI-driven HR platform whose goal is to be a lawyer.
Last week, notable transactions included a $9.8 billion AI platform deal, $1.3 billion in two deals by Mach Resources and the sale of The Dallas Morning News to Hearst. The week ending July 12 saw 15 deals valued at just over $13 billion dollars. The week prior, there were nine deals for $15.8 billion and this time last year there were 20 deals for $17.2 billion.
In an all-cash, take-private deal valued at $74.9 million, The Dallas Morning News announced Thursday that it has agreed to join the Hearst Corporation, whose national chain of 28 daily newspapers will soon include the dailies of Texas' four most populous cities. Outside legal advisors on the deal include Haynes Boone for DallasNews and Clifford Chance for Hearst. Jeff Chapman of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher advised Robert W. Decherd, DallasNews’ majority shareholder and former chairman.
Chevron’s $53 billion acquisition of Hess remains in limbo despite FTC approval, which barred the son of Hess’ founder from a Chevron board seat due to antitrust concerns and alleged OPEC collusion. The merger’s fate hinges on an arbitration decision that could be announced soon with ExxonMobil over Hess’ stake in Guyana’s lucrative Stabroek Block. Meanwhile, CITGO, formerly Venezuelan-owned, saw a new winning bid in a Delaware court auction to settle expropriation claims.
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