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There's been some notable dealmaking recently in the legal innovation arena, with law firms, alternative legal service providers and legal tech companies all making acquisitions or investments. The latest is Thompson Reuters' purchase of HighQ for an undisclosed amount. The London-based company provides a secure cloud-based platform for business collaboration, workflow automation and client engagement for the legal industry.

HighQ, which was a part of Allen & Overy's Fuse incubator program, counts global heavyweights Clifford Chance, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Dentons, White & Case and Shearman & Sterling among its law firm clients.

This deal is another in a long list of consolidations and purchases being made by entities looking to beef up their legal tech and “new law” holdings. Thomson Reuters, for example, also purchased a secure audit confirmation services company, Confirmation, in June. Confirmation listed over 5,000 law firms as clients. 

One of the most active players recently is Elevate. Since November of 2018, the Los Angeles-based company has made at least five acquisitions, giving it entry into previously untapped markets as well as expanding its product and service offering to everything from flexible lawyering platforms to contract lifecycle management. 

The purchases seem to be paying off. Contraxsuite, a product made possible by Elevate's acquisition of AI and data science company LexPredict last November, was selected by Clifford Chance this week to power the firm's new data science lab.

According to industry experts, this sort of consolidation will continue and even accelerate. Nathan Hayes, director of IT at international law firm Osborne Clarke, told Legal Week in June that “We're already beginning to see law firms buying up legal tech companies; law firms partnering with academia and legal tech, having stakes in them, investing in them. I think we're going to see different entities evolving rather than these siloed organizations.”

Clearly the demand is there on the client side. A report this week by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium, or CLOC, said companies of all sizes and across industries are increasing their reliance on legal technology, and most are turning to third-party vendors. Meanwhile, 34% of the companies in CLOC's survey said they had increased their use of alternative legal service providers since 2018.

We'll keep our eyes open for more of those crumbling silos. For now, here are some other deals:

Curaleaf Holdings/GR Companies (Grassroots)

Big Cannabis has a new heavy hitter. Curaleaf Holdings, a multistate cannabis operator in the U.S., has agreed to purchase Grassroots, a complimentary Chicago-based cannabis company, for $875 million. This deal follows Curaleaf's acquisition of Cura Partner's Select brand for $948 million in May. The Grassroots deal opens up Curaleaf's market to seven additional U.S. states, bringing it to a total of 19. The new company will have a combined 131 dispensary licenses, 68 operational locations, 20 cultivation sites and 26 processing facilities, according to a press release. The deal, which has been approved by both boards, is expected to close in early 2020. 

Loeb & Loeb and Stikeman Elliott for Curaleaf Holdings/Katten Muchin Rosenman and Fox Rothschild for GR Companies 

Blackstone Group/Vungle

What is Vungle? You know those targeted video ads you get on your free Pandora station? That's Vungle. The video ad-serving service startup, which thus far has raised about $30 million in funding, will be acquired by Blackstone Group for a reported $750 million. Vungle cites Microsoft, Rovio and Pandora as clients and said it serves more than four billion ad views per month. About half of those must appear on Deal Watch's Pandora account.

DLA Piper for Blackstone Group/Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett for Vungle

People's United Financial/United Financial Bancorp

Some deals are tricky for companies. Some company names in deals are tricky for people. This fits the latter. People's United Financial, the holding company for People's United Bank N.A., will acquire United Financial Bancorp, the holding company for United Bank, for $750 million. Got that straight? Founded in 1858, United Bank is a community financial services entity based in Hartford, Connecticut, and has roughly $7.3 billion in assets. The deal is valued at $14.74 per United Financial Bancorp share, based on the common stock closing price July 12th.

Simpson Thatcher for People's United Financial/Sullivan & Cromwell for United Financial Bancorp

Gilead Sciences Inc./Galapagos NV 

Some companies want to go viral. Gilead Sciences is investing a lot of money to go anti-viral. The U.S. drug maker will expand its investment in Belgo-Dutch biotech Galapagos NV by $5.1 billion, upping its stake in Galapagos from 12% to 22%. The two companies will focus on inflammatory conditions, one of the most lucrative areas in the pharmaceuticals industry. News of the deal sent Galapagos' stock up 18%, putting it at a new all-time high of $170.77. Gilead paid a 10% premium over Galapagos' closing stock price from July 14th. 

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for Gilead Sciences/Baker McKenzie and Linklaters for Galapagos NV

Callon Petroleum Co./Carrizo Oil & Gas

For good baseball and energy deals, the home of the Astros is the place to be. Houston-based Callon Petroleum has agreed to an all-stock merger with Houston-based Carizo Oil & Gas for $3.2 billion, including $1.7 billion in Carizo's debt. The combined company would control 200,000 acres in the Permian Basin, viewed as the most abundant oil fields in the United States, and Eagle Ford shale-production areas of the Lone Star State. The $13.12 stock purchase price represented a 25% premium over Carizo's closing price July 12. 

Kirkland & Ellis for Callon Petroleum/Baker Botts for Carrizo Oil & Gas

Prologis/Industrial Property Trust 

As e-commerce continues to explode, so does the need for warehouses. Prologis, the San Francisco-based industrial real-estate investment trust, has agreed to purchase real-estate investment trust and warehouse owner Industrial Property Trust for $3.99 billion, including debt. Prologis was outbid by Blackstone Group earlier this year for the purchase of warehousing giant GLP, which Blackstone acquired for $18.7 billion. Cardboard box manufacturers, take note.

Firm for Prologis not readily available/Hogan Lovells for Industrial Property Trust

Blackstone Group/CRH 

The Irish are a resilient people. But apparently not resilient enough to handle underperformance in the plumbing and heating products distribution game. Dublin-based CRH, among other things the largest provider of asphalt in the United States, has sold off its European heating and plumbing products distribution arm to Blackstone Group for $1.9 billion. CRH said in a statement that the company hopes to focus more on building materials, like asphalt and cement. This marks its exit from the distribution arena.  

Clifford Chance for Blackstone/Slaughter and May CRH

WHP Global/Premiere Products Group (Anne Klein)

Anne Klein clothing: Fashionable. Reasonably priced. Newly created WHP Global, with the help of $200 million in funding from Oaktree Capital, agrees on the price at least and has purchased the iconic fashion brand from previous owner Premier Brands Group. Anne Klein brand had $700 million in sales in 2018. The purchase price for the brand was not disclosed.

Pryor Cashman, Kirkland & Ellis and Boies Schiller Flexner for WHP Capital/Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel for Premier Brands Group (Anne Klein)

Stonegate/Ei Group

Everyone fantasizes at some point about buying a bar. Stonegate took it a few steps further and decided to buy 4,000. The managed pub and restaurant company has agreed to purchase its much larger rival in the U.K., Ei Group, for $1.58 billion. The acquisition makes Stonegate the largest pub owner (by number of pubs) in a country that loves them. The company, known mostly for a few chain establishments like Slug and Lettuce and Walkabout, owned 765 properties prior to the acquisition. Britain's pub industry (let's call it Big Pub) has fallen on some rough times recently as younger Britons move away from the pub drinking scene and employees at said pubs are commanding a living wage. Stonegate will assume $1.7 billion in debt as part of the deal.

Kirkland & Ellis for Stonegate/CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang for Ei Group

Star Investment Holdings/Radiology Partners

Star Investment Holdings is investing $700 million in long-term capital in Radiology Partners, the largest physician-led and physician-owned radiology practice in the U.S. According to a release, Radiology Partners works with over 1,000 hospitals and other health care facilities in the United States, and plans to use the capital infusion to expand their already significant reach. That's a lot of X-rays.

Kirkland & Ellis for Star Investment Holdings/Goodwin Proctor for Radiology Partners

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Deal Watch is The American Lawyer's (mostly) weekly roundup of big-ticket and transformative deals and the law firms that guide them. Have a transaction you'd like us to consider? Email us at [email protected].