Locke Lord Provides Counsel on Major Deals Valued At More Than $19 Billion During First Half of 2015

June 19, 2015 – Lawyers at Locke Lord LLP provided clients counsel on major deals and transactions valued at more than $19 billion during the first two quarters of 2015, including multiple billion dollar deals handled by the Firm’s highly-regarded Mergers and Acquisitions Section and key transactions by the Private Equity and Venture Capital Practice Group.

In high-profile deals and transactions during the first six months of 2015, Locke Lord lawyers:

• Provided legal counsel for the Conflicts Committee of Crestwood Equity Partners LP in the merger of Crestwood Equity Partners with Crestwood Midstream Partners LP into a single publicly-traded partnership on May 6, 2015. Crestwood Equity purchased Crestwood Midstream for $3.5 billion. The merger had an enterprise value of $7.5 billion and is expected to close in Q3 2015. The Locke Lord team included Bill Swanstromand David Taylor.

• Provided counsel to Enterprise Products Operating, LLC in its $2.15 billion purchase of the EFS Midstream, the Eagle Ford Shale midstream business of Pioneer Natural Resources Company and Reliance Holding USA, Inc. The transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals and normal closing adjustments. The deal was announced on June 1, 2015. The team of Locke Lord lawyers was led by Terry Radney and included Joe Perillo and Hunter Summerford.

• Served as counsel to Great Hill Partners, the private equity sponsor, in the sale of Latisys Holdings LLC to fiber networker Zayo Holdings, LLC for $675 million. The deal closed on February 24, 2015. A team of Michael Newquist, Robert Baute and David Rodgers represented Great Hill in the deal.

• Represented Firestone Financial Corp. in a definitive agreement for it to be acquired by Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc. and operated as a subsidiary of Berkshire Bank. The Locke Lord team representing Firestone Financial included John Whitlock, Chris Graham, Gene McDermott and Michael Serra.

“The majority of the collective deals and transactions we worked on were based in the energy sector where activity remained steady during the first half of the year as oil prices stabilized and the continued consolidation of the industry resulted in deals being hammered out,” said Bill Swanstrom, Vice Chair of the Firm and Co-Chair of Locke Lord’s Energy Practice. “There has been a noticeable increase in activity in the midstream market during the past few months, and it appears the deal and transactions markets will remain quite active through the end of the year and into 2016.”

About Locke Lord LLP
Locke Lord is a full-service, international law Firm of 23 offices designed to meet clients’ needs around the world. With a combined history of more than 125 years and a greatly enhanced domestic and global footprint, Locke Lord is a worldwide leader in the middle market sector. Locke Lord advises clients across a broad spectrum of industries including energy, insurance and reinsurance, private equity, telecommunications, technology, real estate, financial services and health care and life sciences, while providing a wealth of experience through its complex litigation, regulatory, intellectual property and fund formation teams.