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Willkie Farr is leaning hard into a Texas comeback, advising on three energy deals in eight days: Williams' $5.5bn purchase of Momentum Midstream, LS Power's buy of a 606-MW Houston-area gas plant from Constellation, and Hillcore's gigawatt-scale power deal tied to Fermi's AI data center campus. Pinsent Masons booked a “bumper year of investments” that cut profit per equity partner 7.2%, and Paul Weiss is spending $700,000 to fit out a new Houston office.
On the client side, dealmakers are staying busy: KKR bid $9bn for UGI, Goldman agreed to buy LCN Capital, and Brookfield offered $2.9bn for Reliance Worldwide, even as PitchBook counted 3,332 “zombie” private equity companies stuck without a deal since 2021. The SEC proposed its first crypto rules as Congress stalls. A global bond selloff pushed the US 10-year to its highest since early 2025, the US paused 50% Canada tariffs for three days, and the UAE cut all economic ties with Iran.
Now, on to what matters for your practice today.
Today’s Talking Points
-Willkie advises on three Texas energy deals in eight days; Paul Weiss fits out a new Houston office for $700,000
-Pinsent Masons PEP falls 7.2% after a year of spending on laterals, tech, and international growth; LB100 splits on revenue vs. profit
-KKR bids $9bn for UGI; Goldman buys LCN Capital; Brookfield offers $2.9bn for Reliance Worldwide
-PitchBook counts 3,332 zombie PE companies as cov-lite loans hit 92% and lenders keep amending and extending
-SEC proposes its first crypto rules as Congress stalls; a thinner FTC clears a close-call tech deal
-Paramount asks a judge to make 12 states post a $1.88bn bond in its Warner Bros. Discovery fight
-Meta's 29-state addiction trial opens; the judge lets four states try claims jointly alongside federal claims
-Global bond selloff lifts the US 10-year to a 2025 high; US pauses Canada tariffs; UAE cuts ties with Iran
Talent Strategy
Latest Moves
O'Melveny & Myers added Reza Zarghamee as a partner in its project development and real estate practice in Washington, DC.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher has added 12 lateral partners in Texas since the start of last year and now runs about 80 lawyers across Houston and Dallas as it rebuilds its energy bench.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett announced that Jessica Cooney has joined the firm’s Boston office as a partner in its M&A practice.
On the banking side, private-capital is pulling in advisory talent too: Moelis hired five directors from Lazard's private capital advisory group, and Rothschild & Co named Brent Surber head of US private capital markets.
What today's moves tell us: hiring is tilting toward energy, project finance, and private capital, with Texas and London the active build-out markets.
Check our Rolodex newsletter delivered on Monday at 7:30 am for a weekly overview of the lateral market and executive moves.
Operations and Strategy
US firms are planting flags in Texas energy while UK firms absorb the cost of their own growth.
Willkie Farr is banking on a Texas rebound. A trio of energy deals over eight days — Williams' $5.5bn Momentum Midstream purchase, LS Power's buy of the Brazos Valley gas plant from Constellation, and Hillcore's power deal tied to Fermi's AI data center project — anchors a four-year effort to rebuild after the firm lost the partners who started its Houston office in 2021. Willkie launched a Dallas office in 2024 and now has roughly 80 lawyers in the state. Paul Weiss is following the same logic building out a new Houston office as Wall Street firms chase energy and infrastructure fee pools.
In the UK, Pinsent Masons reported revenue up 3% but profit per equity partner down 7.2% after what it called a "bumper year of investments" in laterals, technology, and international expansion. Preliminary LB100 data shows national and regional firms led on revenue growth last year while international firms pulled further ahead on profitability, a widening gap that keeps merger math in play.
Ashurst Perkins Coie named a new board ahead of financial integration next year, while London's Russell-Cooke walked away from a proposed £77m merger. Scale is still the goal, but the path to it is getting more selective.
Practices
Corporate M&A and Capital Markets
Dealmakers are pressing ahead across energy, asset management, and cross-border industrials even with financing costs climbing, and the mix points to a busy calendar of sell-side, financing, and antitrust work. Sponsors and strategics that did the analytical work during the slow stretch are moving decisively on assets they have tracked for years, and a building IPO pipeline suggests capital-markets teams will stay engaged into the fall.
Selected Press:
KKR offered $9bn for UGI, a 20% premium, in a bid for the natural gas and electricity distributor.
Goldman Sachs agreed to buy LCN Capital Partners for about $410m — its second deal in a week to grow its $4tn money-management arm.
Brookfield offered $2.9bn in all cash for Australian plumbing supplier Reliance Worldwide; Copart is competing with GTCR and Veritas for $4.2bn CCC Intelligent Solutions.
National Stock Exchange of India is seeking a record $55bn IPO, and Warburg Pincus-backed Quantexa is weighing a US or UK listing.
Private Equity, Credit, and Restructuring
The private capital picture is splitting between a growth engine and a workout queue. Sponsors are churning portfolios through sponsor-to-sponsor deals and continuation vehicles, but a large cohort of aging, over-levered companies is testing lender patience. For fund managers and their counsel, that points to more liability management, amend-and-extend negotiations, and lender-side mandates alongside selective fundraising.
Selected Press:
PitchBook counted 3,332 PE-backed companies held five-plus years with no deal since 2021; sponsors sit on $860bn of buyout NAV in funds over seven years old, and covenant-lite loans now make up 92% of leveraged loans.
Sponsor-to-sponsor deals hit 53.5% of Q1 exits as continuation-vehicle capital reaches record levels, per Rothschild.
Partners Group won a $1bn Asia private credit mandate, while Pimco's Christian Stracke says wealth managers are shying from private credit after this year's exit restrictions.
UWM took $1.5bn of Oaktree preferred stock after a ~$600m hedge loss; Fitch and Moody's cut their views. Braskem Idesa filed Chapter 11 to shed about $1bn of debt.
Regulatory and Governance
A rulemaking vacuum and a thinner enforcement bench are reshaping how boards price execution risk. General counsel are watching agencies fill gaps that Congress has left open, and the through line is more compliance, merger-strategy, and deal-defense work as regulators and states insert themselves into transactions.
Selected Press:
The SEC proposed its first crypto rules, exempting certain offerings from registration, as Congress stalls and the SEC-CFTC jurisdiction question stays unresolved.
A short-handed FTC cleared a close-call tech deal after its two commissioners split — unsettling assumptions that have shaped recent deal strategy, Baker Botts lawyers note.
Paramount asked a judge to make 12 states and the Writers Guild post a $1.88bn bond while it fights to save its Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, citing mounting delay costs.
Maryland's digital ad tax was struck down, threatening similar plans in Illinois, Utah, and Washington; Disney's ABC sued the FCC over threats to eight station licenses.
Litigation and Product Liability
Platform, product, and privacy dockets keep deepening, and general counsel are recalibrating exposure as coordinated state actions gain traction. The pattern favors sustained MDL, trial, and appellate work.
Selected Press:
Meta's 29-state addiction trial opened in Oakland; Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers let four states try state-law claims jointly alongside federal claims from all 29 — a template for coordinated consumer actions.
Medtronic faces a hernia-mesh MDL hearing in Boston after a first bellwether jury awarded $88m against its Covidien unit.
Harvard agreed to pay $53m to resolve suits over mishandled donated bodies.
Where the Work Sits
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The zombie overhang PitchBook describes routes work to sell side work and capital markets, as well as workout, lender-side, and special-situations teams as amend-and-extend gives way to harder conversations. Restructuring today is as much proactive balance-sheet engineering as distress, and that is where sophisticated mandates concentrate.
Energy and infrastructure is the second pool. Willkie's Texas run, KKR's bid for UGI, and Hillcore's power deal tied to Fermi's data center campus fold project finance, M&A, and regulatory review into single mandates, and the Houston build-out at Paul Weiss shows where firms expect the fees to sit.
Regulatory and deal-defense work is broadening too. The SEC's first crypto rules, a thinner FTC clearing close calls, Paramount's bond fight over its Warner Bros. Discovery deal, and Maryland's ad-tax defeat all put agencies and states between clients and their strategies — the kind of complexity where boards rely on trusted outside counsel.
Product-liability and platform litigation rounds out the multi practice demand map. Meta's coordinated 29-state trial sets a template other defendants will watch, and the Medtronic mesh MDL keeps mass-tort and appellate teams busy.
Global Markets
A relentless bond selloff meets a new Middle East escalation, leaving clients to judge whether the financing window is widening or closing.
Executives and bankers are weighing whether the long-end rout and rising oil push financing costs higher into the fall, while sponsors track the Canada tariff truce and a repricing of rate-cut expectations for deal timing. Dealmakers are reading the move in yields as a sign that financing terms and the treasury, not just the Fed, will shape the next round of structuring.
Selected Press:
The US 10-year hit its highest since early 2025 as a global bond selloff showed "no end in sight"; traders are now hedging for Fed cuts in 2027, and US public debt is nearing $40tn.
The US paused 50% Canada tariffs for three days on a tentative deal, while the UAE cut all economic ties with Iran after missile strikes and tankers turned back in Hormuz.
ECB's Lane sees inflation near 3% for the rest of 2026; UK inflation hit a four-month high, and Germany sold 30-year debt at the highest yield since 2011.
US pending home sales ran near the weakest since 2001 and single-family starts the fewest since 2022 — a buyer's market with few buyers.
Stories to Watch
FOMC minutes (today) — a read on how divided the Fed is as long-end yields climb and financing costs rise.
Target and TJX (today), Walmart and Alibaba (Thursday) — consumer reads as housing cools and tariffs shift.
Medtronic hernia-mesh MDL hearing (Boston) — follows an $88m bellwether verdict and shapes thousands of pending claims.
California v. EPA emissions hearing and xAI v. Minnesota — tests of state authority over vehicle rules and AI "nudification."
US-Canada tariff deadline — a three-day pause that could snap back to 50% levies on ~$20bn of goods.
SEC and CFTC crypto rulemaking — agencies moving while Congress stalls, with jurisdiction still unsettled.
That’s the rundown. See you next where law meets the markets.
-The BigLaw Markets Team
*DISCLAIMER: BigLaw Markets analyzes publicly available information, filings, press releases, and news stories published by reputable media sources to deliver content that highlights demand for legal services. Certain production processes may be supported by proprietary AI tools and are subject to human editorial judgement and review.
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