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Professional sports, once the domain of rich guys who made their money in steel or automobile dealerships, has become its own source of cross-industry partnerships, once-verboten relationships and even M&A. The CDT Roundup looks at how a couple of Texas billionaires and a South Texas bankruptcy are accelerating those changes — along with the lineup of last week's deals.
As Sir Mix-A-Lot might note if he was writing about M&A instead hip-hop fundament, "We like big numbers and we cannot lie." As a result, we decided to continue our look at 2023's remarkable run of billion-dollar deals, and whether inflation inflated our numbers. That and the usual roster of transactions reported last week.
Worldwide M&A values in 2023 reached $2.9 trillion, down 17 percent from 2022. U.S. M&A values were $1.4 trillion in 2023, down about 5 percent compared to the prior year — the slowest (and lowest) annual number in six years. According to a study by LSEG, a data and information firm, private equity-backed M&A fared even worse: a decline of 30 percent in value from 2022. Mega deals ($10 billion+) were down in value and volume. So, what went right? Maybe more than it seems. A closer look at the numbers reveal something far less grim; maybe even optimistic. Perhaps needless to say, CDT Roundup takes that closer look — along with the usual "roundup" of lawyers and firms who reported their deals last week.
Energy transition is proving itself more complicated than expected, and legacy energy more durable. Whether upstream or midstream, energy M&A in 2023 managed to endure the diverse pressures of war, politics, inflation and price volatility to emerge, as TPH&Co., the energy business of boutique bankers Perella Weinberg, describes it: "more important and dynamic than ever." This week's CDT Roundup looks at their interesting year-end reflections, along with 17 deals reported during the final week of the year, as well as the firms and lawyers who worked on them.
Want to know what 2024 will look like? Just take a hard look at 2023, according to many of the respondents to the Dallas Fed's quarterly energy survey. Buoyed by a belief that oil prices will remain more than $70 per barrel, even with depressed natural gas prices, energy producers in the Fed's Region 11 expect consolidations to continue in East and West Texas including a few blockbuster deals. That's what 2023 looked like. The CDT Roundup looks at the details of the Dallas Fed survey along with the usual list of lawyers and firms behind the 23 transactions reported during the next-to-last week of the year.
Oxy's back. With its $12 billion acquisition of CrownRock last week, Occidental Petroleum not only joined other energy giants in the great consolidation of Texas oil production, but in the process seems to have shaken off the burden of its nearly disastrous $57 billion absorption of Anadarko Petroleum in 2018. Still, some observers think some of the same risks of overcommitment — not to mention regulatory concerns — are lurking in even this more modest deal. The CDT Roundup looks at those concerns, as well as the other deals reported from Texas by 280 lawyers.
It's not that unusual, particularly in these days of energy consolidation, to have three billion-dollar deals. But this week saw three billion-dollar deals in three completely different business sectors: pharma, airlines and clean energy. The Roundup takes a look at the whys behind those deals, along with a huge menu of 26 deals, including 10 capital markets transactions (one of which was a very rare IPO and none of which involved Shohei Ohtani). And, of course, the names of the 244 lawyers who worked on them.
Last week's announcement of a new joint venture between Sentinel Midstream and ExxonMobil connecting Louisiana pipelines marked more than another O&G consolidation. It was another deal to be tallied in what has been a remarkable year for Willkie Farr & Gallagher's Houston partner, Archie Fallon. As we head into the final month of 2023, the CDT Roundup looks at his major deals on the year, along with those of the 57 mostly Texas lawyers who reported transactions for the week following the Thanksgiving holiday.
BlackRock is a dirty name, at least among some Texas legislators, for its vigorous investments in energy transition. But it is also the world's largest asset manager with $9.42 trillion under management. This week's CDT Roundup looks at BlackRock and the law firms whose Texas offices often count BlackRock as a client. That, along with the Texas lawyers and firms behind the nine deals reported during the holiday-shortened week.
Sometimes the biggest deal of the week tells us something beyond just its value. Last week, the last full week before Thanksgiving, the deal with the largest reported value involved healthcare. And according to the consulting firm Kaufman Hall, the $2.4 billion sale of three hospitals by Texas healthcare giant Tenet Healthcare is part of a resurgence of M&A in the medical space. This week's CDT Roundup focuses on that uptick, as well as the usual roll call of Texas firms and lawyers who reported deals as the holiday season approaches.
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