A&O Shearman, DLA Piper Advise on $7.5B Semiconductor Deal
DLA Piper and A&O Shearman advised on the deal whose announcement triggered a run-up on Nasdaq for Silicon Labs stock.
Dallas Dealmaker Co-Leads Earth-Shattering $1.25T SpaceX Merger
Texas-based SpaceX has acquired xAI to scale their combined operations “to make a sentient sun to understand the universe and extend the light of consciousness to the stars” in a record-setting transaction. In what would be the largest merger of all time, the deal was co-led by a Dallas lawyer from Gibson Dunn.
Paul Weiss To Open Houston Office with Longtime M&A Dealmakers
Paul Weiss announced Tuesday that it has found the lawyers needed to open and run a new office in Houston, both from Kirkland & Ellis.
Coterra Energy to Merge with Devon Energy to Create $58B Shale Giant
Skadden and Gibson Dunn advised the two companies on the merger, which would create one of the largest shale oil producers in the Delaware Basin. The Texas Lawbook's Jason Philyaw has the details.
Comerica Closes $10.9B Merger, Wins DFW Corp. Counsel Award for M&A Transaction of the Year
Fifth Third Bank's merger with Dallas-based Comerica was a complex mega-transaction put extraordinary pressure on the Comerica legal department, which was already being pushed to the limit on other matters. But the $10.9 billion transaction announced on Oct. 6 officially closed this morning at 12:02 a.m., a mere four months after the deal was announced. Citing their extraordinary accomplishments, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook this past Thursday night honored the Comerica legal department and its outside counsel at Wachtell Lipton with the 2025 DFW M&A Transaction of the Year.
CDT Roundup: Cold Front, Hot Government Capital
For the wintry week ended Jan. 31, the CDT Roundup saw 11 deals reported with a total value of nearly $4 billion — and the bulk of that was, in essence, a preferred equity funding deal involving the federal government.
A week earlier, eight deals were reported with only three disclosed values totaling a little more than $1.3 billion. This time last year there were 16 deals worth a little more than $10 billion that passed across our desk. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
USA Rare Earth Gets $3.1B Federal Funding, PIPE to Expand Supply Chain for Minerals
Latham and White & Case advised on the deal which includes a federal government stake in the publicly traded magnet manufacturer. USA Rare Earth operates a Rare Earth minerals mining facility in Hudspeth County in West Texas.
Chris Blevins: Navigating Solo Brands Through Crisis and Into Renewed Growth
As a teenager and college student, Chris Blevins watched his father — an accountant turned business entrepreneur — negotiate contracts, do deals with vendors and handle issues with clients and customers.
“I was taking a few business and law-related classes, and I started realizing that the things that frustrated him weren’t about the product or the customers, they were about navigating legal and contractual issues that felt foreign and risky,” Blevins said. “It clicked for me that I could be someone who helped businesses run better by removing the friction and risk around these issues, making things clearer and easier.”
For Blevins, the career strategy paid major dividends in 2025 when he scored some huge successes for Grapevine-based Solo Brands. As such, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Lawbook have named Blevins as a finalist for the 2025 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for General Counsel of the Year for a Small Legal Department (two to five attorneys).
AI Wellness and Solar Shine in a Week Dominated by the ‘Private’ in PE
For the week ended Jan. 24, there were just eight deals reported to the CDT Roundup, with only three disclosed values totaling a little more than $1.3 billion. The week prior had 19 deals valued at nearly $18.4 billion, while the year-ago saw nine deals worth about $6.8 billion reported.
The Roundup hasn't seen a cumulative weekly value that low since the week ended June 14 when the nine deals reported had a combined value of $478 million, and that figure is the lowest tallied by the CDT Roundup since May 2020.
As sometimes happens, the week was heavy on private equity deals that the players chose to keep ... well, private. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
To Launch New Dallas Office, Dechert Snags McDermott Duo Behind Tesla’s $1 Trillion Contract
Veteran corporate lawyers and dealmakers Wilson Chu and Joanna Lin have left McDermott to launch Dechert’s new Dallas office, following their high-profile work advising Tesla on Elon Musk’s $1 trillion employment contract. Their move was quietly noted in Dechert’s announcement of 20 partner hires for new offices in Dallas and Chicago, and existing ones in key U.S. markets, marking another shift amid McDermott’s ongoing post-merger reshuffling.
AI as a Service — Divergent State Tax Approaches and Their Impact
Artificial intelligence as a service is transforming business operations across industries, but its tax treatment remains inconsistent among states. For example, Texas applies sales tax to many AIaaS offerings under its “data processing” framework by taxing 80 percent of the service charge, while Indiana exempts AIaaS entirely as a nontaxable service. These differences have significant implications for deal structuring, compliance risk and valuation in private equity transactions. This article examines Texas’ controversial stance, contrasts it with Indiana’s approach and explains why these distinctions matter for investors and operators.
Energy Dominates as Deals Hit $18.4B (The Best Week Since November)
The week ending Jan. 17 saw 19 deals reported to the CDT Roundup with a total value of more than $18.4 billion.
The week prior had 18 deals valued at nearly $9 billion, and there were 19 deals worth about $7.4 billion during the same week last year. But last week was the best week by value since an absurd 21-deal, $75 billion week in early November.
That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
