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While the summer heat continues to scorch the state, the Texas M&A market has certainly cooled. There wasn’t much activity for the week ended Aug. 29, with nary a capital markets transaction. That left the CDT Roundup with seven M&A and funding transactions with a combined disclosed value just over $3 billion.
The audit, which ERCOT anticipates will take several months to complete, must occur prior to any additional data center being approved to move forward in the interconnection process.
Another day, another handful of comings and goings in the energy infrastructure practices of major law firms in Houston. Baker Botts loses one partner to Gibson Dunn but gains another from White & Case. Mayer Brown and Sidley Austin also added partners. All four have corporate transactional practices.
Steve Tyndall has joined A&O Shearman as a partner in the M&A and private equity practice in Austin. Tyndall, who spent the last four years at Morrison Foerster, said that the firm’s international footprint and expanding Texas offices were meaningful in his decision to join A&O Shearman.
The CDT Roundup saw nine deals announced during the week ended Aug. 22, with a combined reported value of about $2.8 billion — the lightest dollar figure since late January. The week prior had 15 deals with a value of nearly $7 billion, and a year ago at this time, the Roundup was reporting 23 deals worth more than $15.2 billion.
The rare week ended without an M&A megadeal.
According to data from The Texas Lawbook's exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker, Texas capital-markets lawyers seperated themselves in two distinct ways in the first half of 2026: by staying busiest across a broad pipeline of offerings and by landing roles on the handful of transactions large enough to dominate the value leaderboards.
The Kirkland & Ellis Texas team did not need long to make its case this week with a Texas Triangle deal blitz stretching from Canada to West Texas. In less than 24 hours, the firm’s public relations team, almost as busy as its deal team, rolled out a rapid-fire run of transactions involving its Austin, Dallas and Houston dealmakers.
The recent phenomena of “DExit” reincorporations of Delaware corporations to Texas and the development of “Y’all Street” have highlighted the benefits of the Texas Business Organizations Code. The TBOC is the work product over the course of three decades by a dedicated group of volunteer Texas lawyers. Where did the TBOC come from?
Dallas-based Safe Harbor Marinas said on Aug. 10 that it has acquired MarineMax for $53 a share, or about $1.5 billion, in cash. MarineMax, based in Oldsmar, Florida, is a boat and yacht retailer that also provides superyacht services. Sidley Austin provided outside legal counsel to MarineMax, while Simpson Thacher advised Safe Harbor.
Though market demands have led many attorneys to specialize in narrow areas, Katten dealmaker Peter Bogdanow has been able to build a practice that reflects the broad training he received as a young attorney. Last month was a great example: Bogdanow played a leading role in two very different transactions. The Lawbook dove into the deals and what else Bogdanow is seeing in his practice in this Q&A.
Texas has emerged as a pivotal center of gravity in the 2026 capital-markets rebound. Lone Star companies are bringing major deals to market, but Texas-based lawyers are increasingly leading their execution here and elsewhere, according to The Texas Lawbook's Corporate Deal Tracker.
Texas private equity firm EnCap Flatrock Midstream has sold Momentum Midstream to Oklahoma energy infrastructure company Williams for $3.5 billion in cash and debt and roughly $2 billion of Williams equity. Willkie and Kirkland advised on the deal.
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