The Derivatives team has extensive experience in advising on and documenting derivatives transactions (particularly highly structured derivatives) and other trading activities for a range of clients.

We are experienced in acting for issuers, arrangers, dealers, swap providers and credit wrappers on domestic, Euro, United States, senior, subordinated, securitised and structured debt and credit products. We routinely act on the hedging aspects of those transactions, dealing with over-the-counter and exchange-traded equity, commodity, energy, credit, interest rate and currency derivatives. We are also experienced in assisting clients on all aspects of the development and distribution of structured products. We have acted for market-leading clients on structured product offerings, including Deutsche Bank, Allco MAX Securities and Mortgage Trust, OM-IP, Macquarie Bank and related funds, Commonwealth Bank, Citigroup, Adelaide Managed Funds, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Goodman Group, Real I.S. AG and David Jones.

We are at the forefront of the market in terms of the complexity, innovation and jurisdictional breadth required in deals with significant balance sheet, funding and risk management importance to our clients.

Derivatives

Our experience includes acting for:

• ANZ on the establishment of its credit derivatives business
• Queensland Treasury Corporation in connection with a range of credit derivatives transactions, including certain funded and unfunded portfolio credit swap and collateralised debt obligations (CDO) transactions
• various clients on a number of total return swaps relating to listed property trust (LPT) securities and listed Macquarie International Real Estate Fund and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings AG securities
• Babcock & Brown and Everest Babcock & Brown on their wholesale and retail funds in connection with investments in performance linked notes, leveraged total return equity swaps over baskets of absolute return funds and leveraged equity options over baskets of absolute return funds, including ancillary capital protection and security arrangements
• UBS AG on its SPARC single-name and basket credit-linked wholesale issues
• XL Trading Partners and Element Re Capital Products, Inc in relation to weather derivatives transactions
• a wide range of electricity market participants over many years in respect of the negotiation and documentation of electricity hedging transactions and internal risk management systems and procedures and AFSL issues, including AGL, TRUenergy, Loy Yang Marketing Management Company, VicPower Trading, EnergyAustralia, Optima Energy, Synergen, NRG Flinders, State Electricity Commission of Victoria and Kinetik Energy
• a Victorian electricity generator in relation to the implications of carbon trading schemes on existing derivatives documentation
• GEAC Consortium on, and conducting a detailed review of, the Loy Yang Power hedge book, as part of its successful acquisition of the Loy Yang A power station
• TransEnergie Australia Limited in the structuring, negotiation and documentation of derivatives transactions of electricity inter-connector capacity and the establishment of its trading operation
• a major gas producer in connection with its ‘gas swap’ transactions and licensing requirements
• a large number of financial institutions and end-users on a wide range of derivatives issues and products, including the documentation of structured equity swap and commodity swap transactions and credit derivatives.

Structured Products

Our experience includes acting for:

• Credit Suisse Asset Management (Australia) on the development and launch of its Tremont structured product which was a hedge fund index tracker fund and its principal protected yield fund series
• Deutsche Bank in relation to three offers of redeemable preference shares, called Xenon Alpha Plus and Xenon Alpha Plus2, to retail investors. An investment in Xenon Alpha Plus provides an investor with leveraged exposure to the performance of two international funds of hedge funds
• Allco Max Securities and Mortgage Trust on its IPO. Max is an innovative new investment product offering credit arbitrage returns, which raises AAA rated debt
• Macquarie Bank on its Generator Notes and Generator Income Notes offerings, by the trustee of the Generator Trusts
• Macquarie Bank Limited on its Escalator Product, which was effectively a domestic tax paid deal for European investors
• Commonwealth Bank of Australia on several structured products, including the Bear Market Equity Linked Noted
• Citigroup, in relation to structured products, including the Optimiser series and market linked investment products
• Adelaide Managed Funds in relation to its Performer Lifestyle 135 and 200 funds which utilise derivative agreements and internal and external leverage to provide access to annual income derived from a basket of securities for a term
• Queensland Treasury Corporation in relation to various structured products investments, including the Deutsche Bank Select Access secured note program and the UBS SPARC secured note program.
  

We have extensive experience in the development, documentation and distribution of financial products for retail clients (including the preparation of easy to use pro-forma documents for retail clients) and are well-placed to provide strategic and regulatory advice in relation to:

• product features and functionality
• distribution via third parties
• compliance of systems, operations and procedures at all stages of the product life cycle.

Our clients benefit from a close working relationship with our partners and solicitors, who are committed to being accessible. Importantly, we seek to add substantial value to the legal advice we give, drawing on many years of collaborative strategic and general commercial experience.