Davis Polk & Wardwell played a leading role advising ExxonMobil on its all-stock $59.5 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, a shale rival. This significant move is one of the largest in what has been a slow market year. The implications of this acquisition are substantial, expanding ExxonMobil’s focus on fossil fuel production. This comes in the wake of similar activities by Chevron, Exxon’s biggest domestic competitor, notably their purchase of Denver-based PDC Energy in the earlier part of this year.
Offering legal counsel to Pioneer in this deal was Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, while Fried Frank acted as an advisor to Goldman Sachs, the financial advisors to Pioneer. The Davis Polk team was headed by Louis Goldberg, a New York deals lawyer and co-chair of the firm’s mergers and acquisitions group. Philip Richter and Roy Tannenbaum, partners at Fried Frank, guided their firm’s role in the transaction.
According to an official statement from the two companies, the deal is anticipated to close in the first half of 2024. The transaction has already procured the approval of both companies’ boards of directors but will still require the approval of Pioneer’s shareholders and must receive relevant regulatory approvals. Read more.
The overall deals activity has seen a decline of more than 14% to $777 billion through the third quarter, compared to the same time last year. Interestingly, North American energy deal volume has remained relatively flat, with $75 billion in transactions completed in the first three quarters of this year.