Property
Experience
Foreign investment into Australia
- Acting for global eyewear manufacturers Luxottica on its acquisition of Australian eyewear leader OPSM.
- Acting for food and beverage giant San Miguel on its $175 million acquisition of a controlling stake in Australia fruit juice manufacturer Berri.
- Acting for North West Shelf Venture in the upstream equity sale to CNOOC Limited, as part of its US$14 billion gas export contract to supply natural gas to China. The contract is Australia's largest ever single export deal.
- Acting for members of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and AIG as Australian counsel in the purchase of InterGen’s Australian assets.
- Acting for a consortium comprising Tokyo Electric Power Company and other investors on the $3.5 billion acquisition of Loy Yang Power.
- Advising ConocoPhillips on the acquisition of BHP’s interest in Bayu-Undan. Freehills was involved in all aspects of the development of Bayu-Undan gas recycle project and Darwin LNG project, including project structuring, construction, the feed gas and transportation arrangements and the LNG sale and purchase arrangements.
- Acting for the arrangers (NAB and Citigroup) on the Wells Fargo $3 billion kangaroo bond programme. Wells Fargo is a US bank holding company.
- Advising International Power on its successful bid for the 168 MW Smithfield Power Project.
- Acting for Billiton in the establishment of a dual listed structure with BHP, creating a global resources group with a value of $57 billion, the largest transaction of its kind in Australian corporate history.
Australian organisations investing offshore
- Acting for Orica Limited on its $900 million purchase of the European, Middle Eastern, African, Asian and Latin American operations of global explosives company Dyno Nobel. The purchase was by a Macquarie Bank-led consortium which simultaneously agreed to acquire 100 per cent of Dyno Nobel from Industri Kapital, a Scandinavian based venture capital firm, and other shareholders for US$1.7 billion.
- Advising Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group (MCIG) on its capital raising to fund its acquisition of the UK telecommunications business of NTL and NTL Digital, together known as ntl:Broadcast.
- Acting for Lend Lease Corporation Ltd in relation to the construction and development of the Bluewater regional shopping centre in Kent, United Kingdom.
- Advising Macquarie Bank on its investment banking joint venture with Thai Military Bank (TMB) in Thailand.
- Advising Development Australia Fund Management Limited in its capacity as a major equity participant in the £1.2 billion (A$3.1 billion) acquisition of the Wales and the West gas distribution network from National Grid Transco plc in the UK.
- Acting as lead lawyers to Hastings Funds Management Limited and Utilities Trust of Australia in relation to the UK acquisition of Mid Kent Water, with an implied enterprise value of $581 million. Subsequent to the acquisition, Freehills has also assisted one of the Hastings’ managed funds (Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund) to conduct a $110 million public issue of hybrid securities to assist with the financing of the transaction.
- Advising a Macquarie Bank-led consortium on its acquisition of a 50 per cent interest in a 1800MW power station in Korea owned by El Paso. The consortium bid vehicle (Korean Power Investment Co. Ltd or KPIC) was selected after a competitive international bid process.