Texas M&A Deal Count Plunges, Value Skyrockets

© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.By Natalie Posgate and Mark Curriden (Nov. 9) – M&A activity in the oil patch continues to shrink, but the deals that are getting done are twice as big and significantly more complex. New data shows that mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures involving Texas businesses have declined four consecutive quarters. The state is on track to have the fewest number of corporate transactions since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, even as M&A across the rest of the U.S. surges to record highs, according to Mergermarket, an independent global research firm. Corporate lawyers and investment bankers now predict energy M&A could remain stagnant or plunge even more over the next year. “This market is just brutal,” says William Snyder, who heads the restructuring practice at Deloitte in Dallas. “There’s going to be prolonged pain.” Mergermarket reports there were 161 M&A deals between July 1 and September 30 involving Texas-based businesses, which is a 36 percent decline from the 251 transactions during Q3 2014. “There’s no doubt that there’s been a slashing of mergers and acquisitions this year,” says Ken Menges, a partner at Akin Gump in Dallas who specializes in corporate transactions. “The deals…