The Texas Lawbook

Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury

Corp. Deal Tracker/M&A tease

Dynamic Energy Deal Duo: Catching up with Skadden’s Emery Choi and Mingda Zhao

Skadden’s Houston M&A group recently welcomed veteran oil and gas partners Emery Choi and Mingda Zhao, reuniting them with prominent Texas dealmaker Steve Gill. Together, Choi and Zhao bring years of experience steering energy sector clients through high-stakes M&A, joint ventures and cross-border investments. Their record includes leading transactions such as billion-dollar-plus deals for Continental Resources, Marathon Oil and Occidental Petroleum. The duo recently shared with The Texas Lawbook their insights on today’s energy M&A landscape, shifting capital trends and the evolving deal dynamics shaping the current market.

Jeff Schnick

Keurig Dr Pepper Turns to Paul Weiss to Lead $18.4B Deal for JDE Peet’s

Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison served as lead counsel for Keurig Dr Pepper in its landmark $18.4 billion acquisition of Dutch coffee giant JDE Peet’s, alongside the in-house lawyers of KDP's team. Paul Weiss continues to be a central legal adviser in high-profile Texas transactions, even as it eyes its first office in the state. A&O Shearman advised JDE Peet's.

Jason Philyaw

CDT Roundup: Data Centers, AI Hunters and HVAC Companies Fuel PE Activity

The week ending Aug. 23 saw 23 deals for just over $15.2 billion. The deals included three transactions — in media, oil and gas and electrical services — which together accounted for $13.6 billion, amounting to 90 percent of the total. But the week saw a slurry of PE transactions, most of them in the electrical, HVAC or data services sectors and they involved a broad variety of interesting businesses. That and more in this week's CDT Roundup.

Allen Pusey

In Roller-Coaster M&A Market, Billion-Dollar Deals Prove More Resilient Than Most

In what has proven to be an increasingly uneven deal environment week-over-week this year, there’s been a steady stream of billion-dollar transactions to kick off the third quarter. Good news, right? Sure, but the devil is in the details. Even with lingering uncertainties around interest rates and geopolitical tensions (both kinetic and trade), Texas lawyers were part of nine major deals exceeding $1 billion since the beginning of July. The transactions span multiple sectors, from energy infrastructure to data centers, highlighting the state's continued appeal as a hub for transformative corporate combos and tie-ups. The Lawbook recently asked Texas dealmakers with extensive experience handling billion-dollar transactions to share their perspectives on the current M&A environment, including their assessment of the first half of the year, the third quarter so far and their outlook moving forward.

Jeff Schnick

CDT Roundup: Last Week’s Deal Flow was More Mirage Than Momentum

The week ending August 16 saw 13 deals for $26 billion. At first blush that meshes nicely with the week prior, which saw 19 deals valued at $16 billion. But don't be deceived. Of those 19 deals in the prior week, 15 of the volume (and $11 million of their value) were for M&A or fundings. Last week saw only seven M&A/Fundings valued in total at just over $3 billion. And the big deal of the week was a capital markets filing: a $20 billion upgrade in a previously announced At-The-Market issue for a crypto miner. That's a questionable week masking as a blockbuster. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.

Allen Pusey

CDT Roundup: AI’s Energy Appetite Continues to Fuel Tech, O&G Deals

The week ending Aug. 2 saw 17 transactions reporting values of $19 billion. You can compare that to last week's 15 deals for $3 billion or the 26 deals for $16 billion we reported this time last year. The news this week is the same news last week: It's all about AI infrastructure. The good news is that even those deals cut a healthy swath across emerging data-related business sectors. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.

Allen Pusey

CDT Roundup: Watt a Week as Deals Spark Up Power and Security

The week ending July 26 saw 15 transactions for just over $3 billion, which doesn't sound like much. The volume is akin to the week before, in which 14 deals were reported for $6 billion. But both pale against the 19 transactions for $16.4 billion reported last year. The plain truth is that transactions in M&A dwindled in Q2 and have stayed dwindled in the first few weeks of Q3. But take heart; Q2 was the weakest quarter in Texas M&A deals last year and the year before. But there was plenty of diversity in the mix.

Allen Pusey

CDT Roundup: Tech Titans, Crypto Surges and Old School Deals Meet Bold Moves

The week ending July 18 saw 14 deals for $6 billion dollars. The week prior saw 15 deals for $13 billion and there were 15 deals for $16 billion reported during the same week last year. But consider the actual deals and you begin to sense a difference: a $25 billion data center deal that probably will be but really isn't yet; a flurry of placements aimed at flipping the switch on crypto assets; an IPO for a Japanese AI-driven HR platform whose goal is to be a lawyer.

Allen Pusey

© Copyright 2025 The Texas Lawbook
The content on this website is protected under federal Copyright laws. Any use without the consent of The Texas Lawbook is prohibited.