Current practice
Nicola specialises in mergers & acquisitions and equity capital markets.
On the M&A side, she advises on both unsolicited takeovers and negotiated company mergers. She has also acted on a wide range of capital markets transactions, including IPOs, secondary issues and debt-equity hybrids.
Nicola spent 2005 as an executive secondee at the Takeovers Panel, advising on a number of active transactions and takeovers policy. She regularly lectures undergraduate students at The University of Sydney in mergers & acquisitions, capital markets and corporate law.
Experience
Major projects and clients
Recent M&A and ECM deals on which Nicola has advised include:
- Viterra Inc on the proposed $1.6 billion acquisition of ABB Grain by scheme of arrangement
- Santos in connection with its $3 billion capital raising
- Macquarie Bank on its offer to acquire units from retail holders in the BrisConnections stapled unit trusts
- Fairfax Media’s $680 million accelerated rights issue
- Centro Property Group’s restabilisation package, including the issue of $1.05 billion senior secured convertible bonds to Centro’s lenders
- Dai-ichi Life’s shareholder approved acquisition of 29.7 per cent of the shares in Tower Australia from GPG
- ArcelorMittal’s acquisition of a strategic stake in Macarthur Coal
- Gem Diamonds’ $300 million takeover of Kimberley Diamonds Company
- Rinker’s defence to the $17 billion takeover bid by CEMEX
- Promina’s $7.9 billion scheme of arrangement merger with Suncorp
- Burns Philp’s $890 million private sale of Uncle Tobys to Nestle
- $690 million takeover of Adsteam Marine by SvitzerWijsmuller
- Fairfax Media’s $250 million issue of SPS hybrid securities (each, a preference security stapled to an unsecured note), used to partially fund Fairfax Media’s acquisition of Trade Me
- Metcash's unsolicited takeover of Foodland, and the associated capital reorganisation of Metcash, involving cross conditional schemes of arrangement in Australia and South Africa
- Initial public offering of Transonic Travel
- Burns Philp's hostile leveraged takeover bid for Goodman Fielder, and
- Takeovers Panel proceedings in relation to Commonwealth Property Office Fund's contested merger with the Gandel Group and Colonial First State Property Trust Group.
Professional background
Nicola has undergraduate degrees in Law and Commerce from the University of Western Australia and a Masters of Laws (Corporate and Commercial) from the University of New South Wales.
She has published articles on takeovers and finance law, including papers published in the Journal of Banking and Finance Law and Practice and the Journal of International Banking Law and Regulation.
Nicola regularly lectures undergraduate students at the University of Sydney in M&A, ECM and corporate law.
