In a move that adds a premier corporate team to its Houston office, Paul Hastings LLP announced today that David Elder, Christopher Centrich, and Patrick Hurley have joined the firm. The trio arrive from the Houston office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

With broad corporate experience across numerous sectors, Elder, Centrich, and Hurley focus on capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, corporate governance, and general corporate securities matters for clients in the energy, oil and gas, sports, entertainment, and telecommunications sectors.

“The elite corporate team of David, Chris, and Patrick is incredibly exciting and important for our strategic focus on being a destination corporate practice in Houston and beyond,” said firm Chair Frank Lopez. “Texas is one of the largest economies in the world and an extraordinary opportunity for us to build upon and expand our practices and client relationships as we continue to gain market share at the top of the market.”

Elder’s premier capital markets and transactional experience includes representing issuers across a broad cross-section of industries, including energy, healthcare, telecommunications, and technology companies, in connection with securities issuances and initial public offerings, as well as various joint venture and merger and acquisition activities. Representative clients and matters include:

• a large publicly traded midstream master limited partnership in its approximately $1 billion merger with a publicly traded corporation;
• a major international oil and gas company in a $2.5 billion merger;
• a large independent upstream E&P company in its initial public offering and subsequent multi-billion dollar debt and equity offerings; and
• multiple merger and acquisition transactions, joint ventures, and other strategic transactions, including a strategic 50/50 partnership with affiliates of a private equity firm to acquire a working interest in approximately 318,000 gross acres in the Western Eagle Ford for approximately $2.3 billion.

“We are excited to join the Paul Hastings global platform and its preeminent capital markets practice,” said Elder of the team joining from the Chambers-ranked capital markets practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where he was co-head of that firm’s energy practice. “It is motivating to join a firm with such strong synergies across multiple leading practices, and we look forward to working with our new colleagues in Houston and around the world.”

Centrich represents energy companies across a wide range of corporate, capital markets, and other strategic transactions, including:

• a publicly traded upstream energy company in a series of public debt and equity offerings, including its most recent $900 million offering;
• a publicly traded upstream energy company in its $1.6 billion acquisition of a publicly traded upstream energy company and related offerings;
• a publicly traded midstream company in its exchange of approximately $330 million of unsecured notes for senior secured notes; and
• a publicly traded oilfield services company in its exchange of senior secured notes for new notes and equity.

Hurley advises on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other strategic transactions, debt and equity financings, and other corporate matters, including:

• a large publicly traded upstream E&P company in a number of debt and equity offerings, merger and acquisition transactions and related activities;
• a leading offshore drilling contractor in a $1 billion registered merger transaction with a public offshore drilling company;
• a public company in a convertible preferred stock investment in a geothermal company; and
• a public oilfield services company in the sale of its water-related asset business for a combination of cash and common stock.

Elder, Centrich, and Hurley join the leading Paul Hastings corporate practice following the arrival of Colin Diamond, co-chair of global capital markets, Seo Salimi, Will Magioncalda, Ryan LaForce, and David Hong in New York, Scott Joachim and David Ambler in Palo Alto, Sean Donahue in Washington, D.C., and Niko Paschos in Frankfurt.

In Texas, the new corporate team follows Paul Genender, complex commercial litigator, who joined last fall as chair of the firm’s Texas commercial litigation practice and co-chair of the Houston office.