Current practice

Dan Brealey, a lawyer and former banker, joined Freehills as a partner in 1997. Previously, he practised in banking and finance law with another leading law firm in Perth, before spending 10 years at Credit Suisse in Zurich and London where he was a member of senior management.

Dan uses his extensive experience to advise large corporate borrowers and financial institutions on a range of banking and finance matters including:

• structured and project finance
• acquisition financing, and 
• term lending products including syndicated and large-scale construction finance facilities.

Dan is able to provide his clients with valuable insights on the financial structuring of transactions due to his unique combination of expertise, particularly his:

• in-depth knowledge of available financial products and understanding of lenders’ legal and commercial objectives, and
• ability to provide alternative innovative strategies to achieve objectives.

Industry experience

At Freehills, Dan has advised on a number of major financings, including acting for:

Structured and project financing

• the Commonwealth of Australia (through DOFA) on the fleet management and leasing of a 14,000 vehicle fleet (including approx. 6,000 Department of Defence vehicles)
• MTE (now Connex) in financing its successful bid for the Hillside Trains franchise and its subsequent AUD $520 million refinancing through a domestic leveraged lease of rolling stock
• a major mining company on leasing over AUD $400 million of equipment under three separate domestic leveraged operating leases
• a major mining company on a USD $200 million secured export note issue backed by a five year forward sale of precious metal production
• a petrochemicals manufacturer on the domestic leveraged lease of an AUD 70m splitter and storage bullets
• a major mining company on a USD $100 million multi-jurisdictional receivables securitisation 
• a major mining company on a AUD $100 million loan asset swap
• a major mining company on a hedging overlay transaction and receivable securitisation
• a major mining company on a USD $600 million syndicated facility for the acquisition and development of a new world scale mine
• CBA on providing off-balance sheet financing of employee share plan loan schemes for two major listed corporates totalling AUD 120m
• Macmahon on a package of domestic and international lease facilities and secured loans totalling AUD $440 million
• Telstra on operating lease master facilities for various equipment

Acquisition and bridge financing

• JP Morgan and CSFB in arranging a AUD $3 billion syndicated loan for Telstra
• Smorgon Steel in the financing of its successful joint AUD $815 million bid with OneSteel for Email
• AXA S.A. in financing the AUD $800 million acquisition by National Mutual of the publicly listed minority interests in AXA China Region
• Pasminco on the financing of its successful AUD $452 million acquisition of Savage Resources
• Sons of Gwalia on the acquisition and back-stop financing for its successful bid for PacMin Mining
• National Foods in financing its bids for Dairy Farmers and NZ Dairy Corporation (detailed signed term sheets only)
• Newbridge Capital in the financing of its potential purchase of Foster's AUD $1.3 billion pub portfolio (detailed signed term sheets only)
• Alinta on various acquisition facilities including an AUD $15 billion (equivalent) facility for the acquisition of Thames Water (fully documented but not signed)

General corporate finance

• National Foods in an AUD $850 million loan note subscription agreement
• Zinifex on an AUD $300 million syndicated facility and various acquisition financing term sheets
• Toll Group on a series of club loans
• ABC Learning Centres on a number of syndicated facilities including their recent AUD $1.5 billion facility
• Orica on an AUD $2 billion + series of club loans
• Telstra on secured JV financing and various aspects of restructuring a project financing of a optical fibre cable

Professional background