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Experience

Freehills’ involvement in securitisation dates back to some early landmark transactions in the mid-1980s, with one of our first deals being in 1986, acting for the trustee on the establishment of FANMAC and on its initial issuance. This deal has been widely credited as being the first issuance of securitised product outside the US. Since then, we have continued to play a mainstream role in the Australian securitisation market, having acted for many of the major securitisation industry participants in transactional and advisory capacities.

The firm has maintained its involvement in the peak industry body, the Australian Securitisation Forum (ASF), contributing on regulatory, prudential and tax/stamp duty issues. Most recently, members of our team have led some of the ASF’s drafting initiatives in relation to APRA’s revised APS120 (securitisation rules for banks and other ADIs).

We have acted for arrangers, issuers, underwriters, dealers, credit enhancers, trustees, facility providers, swap providers and originators on domestic and offshore issues.

Our long-standing and continuing involvement in the securitisation sector commenced with the firm’s involvement in a number of ‘firsts’ in this area in 1987 and 1988. We acted on the first securitisation by a financial institution in Australia (acting for Town & Country Building Society on its rated residential mortgage securitisation) and on the first repackaging of mortgage-backed securities in Australia (acting for Security Pacific on a rated repackaging of mortgage-backed securities). We have been involved with asset-backed transactions by Australian issuers in the US and European capital markets and various cross-border deals relating to securitised assets located in North America, Asia and New Zealand.

This experience and our multidisciplinary team of lawyers allows us to offer advice covering:

Our project management includes the preparation, negotiation of transaction documents and the management of all aspects of case and synthetic asset-backed transactions.

Commerciality and inspired thinking is an important approach in helping clients in an increasingly competitive, sometimes commoditised and occassionally volatile sector of the financial markets. We focus on developing deep and trusted relationships with clients, helping them to produce innovative solutions and providing tailored advice for their business needs.

Some of our major transactions in the key areas of the Australian securitisation market include the following.

Residential mortgage-backed transactions

Commercial mortgage-backed transactions

Asset-backed transactions

- Allco’s freight rail securitisation
- Allco’s Aviation Fund repackaging program
- Allco’s AAF and SAFIF aircraft lease securitisation programs
- various PPP and structured bond issues.

Structured credit and capital markets transactions

We also act on structured credit transactions, with members of the team having been involved (at Freehills or otherwise) in:

Our extensive experience in debt capital markets transactions includes acting on a range of public and private domestic and international bond and note issues, US private placements and wrapped debt issues.