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Claire Poole is a senior writer at The Texas Lawbook, where she covers corporate transactions.
Claire Poole is a business writer based in Houston. She previously was a senior writer at The Deal, where she spent 16 years covering mergers and acquisitions, private equity and investing in the energy sector. Before The Deal, she worked as a reporter and staff writer at Forbes, was editor of El Financiero International and Mexico Business and was a contributing editor at LatinTrade. She also contributed articles to Money, Worth, BusinessWeek and Texas Monthly.
Claire’s email is claire.poole@texaslawbook.net.
Kirkland advised the publicly traded buyer, whose management has spoken about wanting to diversify its assets, and Baker Botts and V&E assisted the sellers, which were said to have wanted to shed their assets.
Gibson Dunn advised the buyer while Kirkland assisted the seller in what's being billed as a merger of equals worth $5.4 billion.
Deals are down across the globe, according to Refinitiv. In the U.S. the view is a little more complicated. In Texas, it's a lot more complicated — but in a good way. The CDT Roundup has the numbers for you to consider, along with the usual rundown of last week's deals.
The London-headquartered firm's Houston office launch team of "at least 10 partners" is taking shape. Partners from Kirkland & Ellis and Jones Day are joining a roster that also includes dealmakers from Vinson & Elkins and Latham & Watkins.
PureWest was sold last week for $1.84 billion to an unusual consortium of family offices and financial institutions. But you knew that because we wrote about the 67 lawyers at four different firms that worked on it. But PureWest has an interesting history that winds from Wyoming to Appalachia through a couple of bankruptcies and a couple of different names. The CDT Roundup recounts that history, along with a list of the lawyers and firms who reported their deals last week.
The Texas Lawbook exclusively reported on Friday that Jonathan Castelan joined the Magic Circle firm from Latham & Watkins' Houston office. Trevor Lavelle, a partner at Latham, will also be accompanying him.
The energy M&A/infrastructure attorney worked on several deals for Latham, including counseling ExxonMobil and Chevron on projects.
Members of buying consortium included A.G. Hill Partners, Cain Capital, Eaglebine Capital Partners, Fortress Investment Group, HF Capital, Petro-Hunt and Wincoram Asset Management.
While the CDT Roundup has noted the part played by Texas lawyers at Vinson & Elkins and Kirkland & Ellis on behalf of PE giants KKR and Blackstone, another has raised its hand: Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. This week's Roundup notes the seven deals involving Texas bar card holders at the vaunted New York white shoe firm. As always there's the usual rundown of transactions reported last week, along with the names of the firms and lawyers attached to them.
The recruiting of Bennett is part of Weil’s buildout of its energy practice in Texas after some recent departures. Bennett is the second prominent addition to Weil’s energy group in Houston in the past month, following the arrival of partner Omar Samji in April.
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