Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
The week after Labor Day signified the return to work for a lot of Texas deal lawyers, despite the residual damage in Houston from Hurricane Harvey. Herewith are some highlights of recent deals that portend a busy fall, at least in the energy sector.
Non-Texas lawyers at DLA Piper and White & Case did the paperwork, but the Houston-based general counsel for Fertitta’s restaurant, entertainment and hotel company Landry’s and the longtime general counsel for the Rockets and its home court the Toyota Center negotiated the deal. “That is how we kept it quiet and it was done fast,” Scheinthal told The Texas Lawbook.
JW partner Alfie Meyerson cannot identify the buyer or the exact amount of the deal, but the Cielo Vista Ranch in Colorado was listed at $105 million, making it almost certainly the biggest ranch sale in the U.S. so far this year. The property covers 83,000 acres and features the 14,053-foot Culebra Peak, the highest privately-owned summit in the world. “It’s like buying your own national park,” Meyerson told The Texas Lawbook in an exclusive interview.
The end of August found oil and gas lawyers busy cranking out deals before the Labor Day weekend — and the unexpected wrath of Hurricane Harvey. This week's dealmaking includes: Baker Botts, V&E Counsel on Forum-Global Tubing Hookup; and V&E Counseling NCS Multistage on Spectrum Tracer Acquisition.
Lots of M&A dealmakers boast about deals being turbulent, but the lawyers at Kirkland, Sidley and Baker Botts in Houston can now talk about negotiating, papering and announcing a deal in the midst of a category 4 hurricane and record flooding. The Texas Lawbook has the details.
The middle of August is usually a dry period for deals, but several transactions across the energy spectrum kept Texas lawyers occupied the past week. Eight M&A transactions valued at a combined $11.4 billion and three securities offering at $1.8 billion. The Texas Lawbook has complete details.
Law firms have generated hundreds of millions of dollars from the EFH bankruptcy and the billable hours continued to mount over the weekend. EFH GC Andy Wright and the Houston office of Kirkland & Ellis are leading the bankrupt energy company's sale to Sempra Energy for $9.45 billion in cash plus assumption of billions in debt. Jones Day is advising Oncor. White & Case represents Sempra. The Texas Lawbook has full details.
More than 50 lawyers from five different law firms – Bracewell, Haynes and Boone, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins – are representing clients in the $3.8 billion merger this week of Silver Run Acquisitions II with Alta Mesa Holdings and Kingfisher Midstream. The financial advisers include Barclays, Tudor, Pickering, Holt, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan. The Texas Lawbook has the details.
Transocean GC Brady Long selected King & Spalding as the company’s lead U.S. legal adviser on its $3.4 billion purchase of Norway's Songa Offshore announced Tuesday – a deal characterized as the biggest offshore drilling sector merger since oil prices collapsed in 2014.
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