David Aaronson Moves to O’Melveny
Aaronson, a veteran of O&G transactions in the upstream and midstream sectors, departs Orrick where he landed in 2022.
Joint Ventures Demystified — A Practitioner’s Guide to Structuring Successful Partnerships
In today’s global business environment, market participants continuously seek innovative ways to grow their businesses, obtain capital to execute their business plans and leverage shared resources. One popular strategy is forming a joint venture, which is a business arrangement where two or more parties pool resources to achieve a common commercial goal. Structuring a JV is complex, and success hinges on careful planning, negotiation and management, as poorly structured JVs can lead to conflicts, inefficiencies and ultimately failed outcomes.
This article explores several key issues to be addressed when forming a joint venture and provides a roadmap for avoiding some common pitfalls that derail many partnerships. By carefully defining a JV’s scope, negotiating for appropriate consent rights, protecting against leakage from affiliate agreements, addressing fiduciary duties and establishing clear transfer provisions, parties can create a JV structure that helps to ensure alignment and maximizes the likelihood of success for all involved.
CDT Roundup: 12 Deals, 11 Firms, 107 Lawyers, $52.8B
A $50 billion data center joint venture is nothing to ignore. Neither are the footnotes that occasionally accompany a monumental deal. The CDT Roundup this week looks at the big numbers that are building up around AI-driven data centers, and a few tiny cautions about what to expect of them. FYI, we didn't ignore our usual roster of last week's deals — even those under $50 billion.
Kirkland Advises on $1.25B Sale of EQT Marcellus Assets
The purchase follows — and completes — a swap agreement announced in April in which EQT exchanged a 40 percent interest in those same assets for Equinor's assets in the Appalachian Basin and $500 million in cash.
Seyfarth Snags Energy Trio from Polsinelli
Partner Chris Cottrell and associates Michael Szymanski and Xiaoming Gao will launch an energy transition practice at the firm's Houston office.
CDT Roundup: 8 Deals, 8 Firms, 65 Lawyers, $3.2B
Data from Pitchbook for the first three quarters of 2024 shows that global M&A has rebounded both in volume and value over the same period last year. The CDT Roundup parses their report and looks at how those global numbers compare with North America in general and Texas in particular. The numbers, extracted from the Corporate Deal Tracker database, surprise. That, and the usual summary of deal traffic during what proved to be an ironically light week.
Keurig Dr Pepper to Acquire Ghost Brand for $990M
Under the deal KDP will pay $990 million in cash for a 60 percent stake in Ghost Lifestyle and Ghost Beverages, with purchase of the remaining 40 percent to follow in 2028. Ghost will operate as part of KDP but will continue to be run by Ghost co-founders, Dan Lourenco and Ryan Hughes.
H.T. Flanagan Joins Kirkland & Ellis
The debt finance lawyer moves from Freshfields where he officed in New York.
Dallas Real Estate Partner Conrad Steele Returns to Jones Day
Steele, who started his career in private practice at Jones Day in 2015, was most recently at Winstead. He has handled large acquisitions of distressed hospitality loan portfolios, single-family housing portfolios, self-storage portfolios, and life sciences properties.
CDT Roundup: 12 Deals, 11 Firms, 136 Lawyers, $5.3B
Dykema's 20th anniversary M&A Outlook Survey is grounded in optimism, a far cry from the doom-saying that characterizes these final days of the presidential race. The survey, taken between late July and early August suggests that M&A may well thrive between now and mid-2025. The CDT Roundup takes a look at the apparent reasoning behind such optimism, along with the usual list of Texas-related transactions reported last week.
Phillips 66 Sells Stake in Swiss Venture for $1.24B
As part of a promised $3 billion in divestitures, P66 is selling off its minority share in Coop Pronto, an operator of food-and-gas locations across Switzerland.
CDT Roundup: 17 Deals, 12 Firms, 150 Lawyers, $8.4B
Chevron's announcement last week of a $6.5 billion divestiture of a couple of Canadian upstream interests reminded us that the California company is on the verge of relocating its C-Suite to Houston. But included, along with the household furniture and company file cabinets, is an ongoing beef with their new Texas neighbors, Exxon Mobil, over Chevron's proposed $53 billion merger with Hess Corp. The CDT Roundup catches up with recent developments regarding the disputed merger, along with the usual list of firms and lawyers behind last week's Texas-related transactions.
