Nettie Downs
Texas Tower
845 Texas Avenue
Suite 4700
Houston, Texas 77002
Nettie’s principal area of practice is corporate law, with a primary focus on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, fundraising, corporate structuring and other general corporate matters. She regularly advises private equity funds, their portfolio companies, other financial sponsors and public and private companies on such strategic transactions and structurings across a variety of industries, including renewable energy, traditional energy, infrastructure, maritime, healthcare, real estate, technology and others.
In addition to her client work, Nettie co-leads the firm’s Women’s Initiative program in Houston.
Nettie was recognized in the 2024 edition of Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch in America© for her high caliber work in Mergers and Acquisitions Law.
Experience Highlights
Carlyle Power Partners in its acquisition, through a joint venture with EIG, of the 829 MW Panda Patriot and the 829 MW Panda Liberty power generation facilities in Pennsylvania
Riverstone Holdings in the formation of a new independent power producer, Onyx Strategic Investment Management I BV, and acquisition of a fleet of coal and biomass-fired power stations in Europe
Live Oak Acquisition Corp. II, a SPAC, in its $1.4 billion business combination with Navitas Semiconductor, the industry leader in Gallium nitride power ICs
HighPeak Energy Partners, LP, an oil and gas exploration and production company, and its affiliates in a $900 million business combination with Pure Acquisition Corp.
Direct Energy in its $300 million sale of Clockwork, a home services franchise platform, to Authority Brands
Plains All American in a strategic joint venture, Plains Oryx Permian Basin LLC, with Oryx Midstream, a Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners portfolio company, combining substantially all of Oryx’s assets with the majority of Plains’ assets located within the Permian Basin
Treehouse Communities in its strategic joint venture with Vineyards Management Group to form Roots Management Group, the parent company of two leading brands for manufactured housing communities & RV parks
A global technology company in its merger with an online gaming platform
Midstream oil and gas company in its $525 million capital raise from a large private investment firm focused on the energy industry in exchange for a majority interest in the company
A growth equity investor in its $22.5 million investment in a joint venture developing bioactive compounds for use as complementary medicine to support human health and wellness
Ni2 Holdings in the sale of its hospital consulting business focused on revenue cycle management, charge capture optimization and targeted expense reduction
Gulf Coast Ammonia in the financing of a world-scale, hydrogen-based ammonia project in Texas, including the negotiation of equity financing agreements (Proximo’s 2019 North American Petrochemicals Deal of the Year)
Retirement and life insurance company in its acquisition of two utility scale solar projects in West Texas (250 MW) from a major developer
OCI Global in its entry into a binding equity purchase agreement for the sale of 100% of its equity interests in its clean ammonia project under construction in Beaumont, Texas for purchase price consideration of $2.35 billion, on a cash-free, debt-free basis
Global Infrastructure Partners, a leading global infrastructure investor, in connection with its approximately $2.6 billion all cash sale of Medallion Midstream Partners, LLC to ONEOK, INC. (NYSE: OKE)
Maxar Technologies in its $3.6 billion merger with DigitalGlobe, creating a leading provider of satellites, earth imagery, geospatial data solutions and analytics
Devon Energy Corp. in the $3.125 billion sale of ownership interests in EnLink Midstream Partners and EnLink Midstream to Global Infrastructure Partners
3 Bear Energy, a Blackstone Credit portfolio company, in the $624.7 million sale to DKL Delaware Gathering, a subsidiary of Delek Logistics Partners, of its crude oil and gas gathering, processing and transportation businesses and water disposal and recycling operations in the Delaware Basin in New Mexico
Archaea Energy in its $215 million acquisition of NextGen Power Holdings, the owner of a portfolio of 14 operating landfill gas to power projects located in the Mid-Atlantic United States, from Riverview Investment Holdings, an affiliate of Castleton Commodities International
Paragon Offshore Limited in the $232.5 million sale of the company to Borr Drilling Limited
Rubicon Oilfield International, a portfolio company of Warburg Pincus, in its sale to Innovex Downhole Solutions
Clean Line Energy Partners in the sale of its non-transmission development assets, including its interests in a 600 MW wind project and a series of utility-scale wind and battery storage development projects to ConnectGen, a portfolio company of Quantum Energy Partners
Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners in the acquisition of Glidepath Power, a developer of battery storage and renewable energy projects
Black Mountain Sand LLC, a Texas-based in-basin frac sand provider, in its merger in an all-stock transaction with Covia Energy LLC to form Iron Oak Energy Solutions LLC, a leading North American diversified proppant supplier
Crowley Maritime Corporation in a joint venture with Seabulk Tankers, Inc., a subsidiary of SEACOR Holdings, to combine their respective fleets of “Jones Act” vessels engaged in liquid energy and chemical transportation and related operations and services to form Fairwater Holdings LLC , a new, independent U.S. Jones Act service provider
Crowley Maritime Corporation in the formation of Crowley Wind Services, a joint venture with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners to develop terminals and provide maritime services in support of offshore wind energy development in the United States (Marine Money’s 2023 M&A Deal of the Year)
Plains Oryx Permian Basin LLC (“POPB”), a Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. and Stonepeak portfolio company joint venture, in a drop-down transaction in which POPB contributed approximately 104MM of pipeline and marketing assets to OMOG JV LLC, a POPB and Diamondback Energy, Inc. joint venture
Plains All American Pipeline in a 50/50 joint venture, Cushing Connect Pipeline & Terminal LLC, with Holly Energy Partners, L.P., for (i) the development and construction of a new 160,000 barrel per day common carrier crude oil pipeline that will connect the Cushing, Oklahoma crude oil hub to the Tulsa, Oklahoma refining complex owned by a subsidiary of HollyFrontier Corporation and (ii) the ownership and operation of 1.5 million barrels of crude oil storage in Cushing, Oklahoma
ioneer Ltd. in the formation of a 50/50 joint venture with Sibanye Stillwater to develop the flagship Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project located in Nevada and related development and financing matters
Carlyle Global Infrastructure Opportunity Fund with respect to ASX Holdings as part of a joint venture between Carlyle and Schneider Electric to pursue microgrid development and other “energy as a service” projects, including, an integrated microgrid and electric bus charging infrastructure project for the Brookville Smart Energy Bus Depot in Maryland
Petro Harvester Oil & Gas, LLC in its combination with White Marlin Energy Partners to form Rockall Energy, LLC
Untitled Group in its acquisition of an interest in Tu-K Industries, a cosmetics developer and manufacturer
Tyr Energy in the equity syndication and project financing of a 1,000 MW natural gas-fired combined cycle power plant in PJM (2017 IJGlobal North American Power Deal of the Year)
Crowley Holdings in the closing with Global Infrastructure Partners of a $300 million preferred equity investment in Crowley Preferred Funding, LLC
Enerplus Resources (USA) Corporation on the equity financing for the acquisition of the issued and outstanding equity interests of Bruin L&P HoldCo, LLC, a pure-play Williston Basin private company, from Bruin Purchaser LLC for a total cash consideration of US$465 million
Flywheel Energy Operating, a portfolio company of funds managed by Kayne Anderson Capital Advisors, in the equity financing for its $1.865 billion acquisition of all Fayetteville Shale and ARKOMA upstream and midstream assets of Southwestern Energy Company via the acquisition of 100% of the issued and outstanding securities in SWN Production (Arkansas) and DeSoto Gathering Company
Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners in connection with various matters related to the equity structuring of its portfolio companies Valley of Fire Solar (the developer of the Gemini integrated 690MW solar PV and 380MW battery storage project in Nevada) and Primergy Solar, LLC (a developer of energy storage and solar power projects in North America)
Management team in obtaining equity commitments of approximately $30 million to form a new financial services company
Ranger Energy Services, Inc. in its $85 million initial public offering of common stock
Credentials
- University of Pennsylvania Law School, J.D. cum laude, 2014 (Executive Editor, Journal of International Law)
- The Lauder Institute, Wharton | Arts & Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, M.A., International Studies, Emphasis on the Middle East & North Africa, 2014 (Director’s List)
- Brigham Young University, B.A., Linguistics magna cum laude, 2011
- The Best Lawyers in America© (BL Rankings, LLC), “Ones to Watch,” Mergers & Acquisitions Law (Houston), 2023 and 2024
- Association of Women Attorneys Foundation Board of Trustees
- Houston Bar Association Special Olympics Committee
- Texas
- Utah
- Washington
- Arabic (conversational)
- Spanish (conversational)
- InsightDecember 10, 2024
V&E CTA Update
- InsightDecember 5, 2024
V&E CTA Update
- InsightNovember 8, 2024
V&E CTA Update
- Deals & CasesNovember 5, 2024
- Deals & CasesSeptember 13, 2024
- Deals & CasesAugust 29, 2024
- Rankings & AwardsApril 25, 2024
- Deals & CasesMarch 25, 2024
- Deals & CasesJanuary 11, 2024
- Deals & CasesSeptember 13, 2023
- Deals & CasesAugust 24, 2023
- Rankings & AwardsAugust 21, 2023
- Rankings & AwardsAugust 18, 2022
- Deals & CasesApril 28, 2022
- Deals & CasesApril 11, 2022
- Deals & CasesSeptember 15, 2021
- Deals & CasesJuly 13, 2021