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Latham & Watkins, Gibson Dunn, Wachtell and McGuireWoods advised on the $2.8 billion merger-of-equals transaction to create Core Natural Resources. The deal combines mining operations across 11 states aimed at global coal exports of metallurgic grade coal.
According to S&P Global, U.S. M&A deal value has declined between election day and year-end in four of the previous seven election cycles. That also means, of course, that in three of those seven cycles, deal value didn't decline. This week the CDT Roundup leans on a recent Morgan Stanley report that suggests that deal-making fundamentals this year are strong enough that the outcome of the upcoming election may not make much difference. Things can change, but with 25 deals reported last week valued at nearly $50 billion, a prediction of robust post-election M&A markets doesn't seem that far off the mark. As always, we have the deals and the names of those who worked on them.
Kevin Brophy and Ming Lei have worked together on a variety of upstream and midstream deals involving EIV Capital and Houston's Westlawn Group.
The rise of the U.S. global LNG export sector is a remarkable one: from essentially zero in 2015 to a position of global leadership in less than a decade. The Texas-Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast has transformed into an epicenter for super-chilled natural gas bound for Europe and Asia. The CDT Roundup this week takes a closer look at a couple of news items that suggest the short-term future could be a bit bumpier than expected. And, as always, there were deals reported last week. We have the firms and the lawyers behind them.
A mostly Houston team from Kirkland & Ellis advised Tulsa-based buyer and A&O Shearman assisted the Scottish target, which would establish H&P as a global leader in onshore drilling.
Nothing says Texas M&A better than a billion-dollar deal. And in the first half of 2024, there were plenty of them.
Deals are deals, unless they turn out not to be. The proposed $4 billion acquisition of Houston-based Mattress Firm by rival Tempur Sealy seemed like a deal. But the Federal Trade Commission last week voted 5-0 to stop the negotiations and sought to do so in a Houston federal court. The FTC complaint contains the usual language about protecting the U.S. consumer, but it also features allegations of retail bullying by Tempur Sealy along with 182-redactions to back that up. A discussion of that, and the usual fare of Texas-related deal summaries and the firms and lawyers involved, is in this week's CDT Roundup.
Willkie Farr advised the buyer while Sullivan & Cromwell assisted the Dallas-based seller, which Vogue once noted, "is Texas with a French accent."
The Corporate Deal Tracker has noticed an uptick in capital transactions over the past few weeks. One firm that seems to be getting its share of CapM deals is Baker Botts. In June alone, BB reported more than $4 billion in 10 capital markets transactions. Claire Poole takes a look at the lawyers behind the action at BB, along with her usual summary of Texas-related deals and the lawyers behind them.
Dallas lawyers from A&O Shearman counseled Nidar, a data center provider for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing in India.
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