Simon is a member of Freehills’ Mergers & Acquisitions and Equity Capital Markets teams. He advises major corporations, including fund managers, on a diverse range of issues including:

• negotiated acquisitions
• takeovers and schemes of arrangement
• equity capital raisings
• joint ventures and shareholder arrangements
• corporate governance, directors and officers duties, continuous disclosure obligations and investor relations.

Simon is a member of Freehills’ Mergers & Acquisitions and Equity Capital Markets teams. He advises major corporations, including fund managers, on a diverse range of issues including:

• negotiated acquisitions;
• takeovers and schemes of arrangement;
• equity capital raisings;
• joint ventures and shareholder arrangements;
• corporate governance, directors and officers duties, continuous disclosure obligations and investor relations.

Major projects and clients

Simon has acted on a wide variety of complex transactions, particularly in the infrastructure and utilities sectors, and has provided ongoing strategic advice to several large financial investors.

Mergers and acquisitions:

• Alberta Investment Management Corporation’s participation in the $415 million acquisition of Great Southern Plantations’ timberland assets
• The $738 million acquisition of Cairns and Mackay Airports by a Westpac-led consortium, and the subsequent sale by Westpac to Auckland Airport of a 24.5% stake in the airports
• Bunge’s $130 million takeover bid for Tully Sugar
• Acquisitions by Hastings-managed funds of Mid Kent Water ($581 million) and South East Water ($1.663 billion), and the subsequent divestment of a 50% stake to CDPQ
• The $1.175 billion sale by National Grid of the Basslink interconnector to Cityspring Infrastructure Trust
• The acquisition of the Envirogen generation business by The Infrastructure Fund and Utilities Trust of Australia
• The $775 million acquisition by shareholders in Melbourne Airport of the Australian airport portfolio of BAA
• The sale of Carnegie, Wylie & Company to Lazard
• Acted for an investor in the consortium which acquired the Port of Brisbane from the State of Queensland
• Acted on the privatisation of the Sun Retail, Sun Gas, Powerdirect and windfarms businesses by the State of Queensland
• Great Energy Alliance’s $3.5 billion acquisition of the Loy Yang A Power Station
• Acted on the sale of Hobart Airport by the State of Tasmania
• Grand Hotel Group’s defence of a hostile takeover bid by Mulpha
• The $250 million acquisition of interests in Athens, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Sydney Airports by Hastings-managed funds
• Orica’s takeover of Incitec, the merger of Incitec’s fertiliser business with Pivot, and the subsequent sale of Orica’s stake in Incitec Pivot
• Acquisitions of interests in Gold Coast Airport
• Investments by UniSuper and Hastings in Tiaki Plantations
• The disposal by Utilities Trust of Australia of its interest in Hancock Victorian Plantations

Equity capital markets:

• The $3.2 billion IPO of SP AusNet
• The $380 million IPO of Hastings Diversified Utilities Fund (“HDF”) and subsequent placements and rights issues
• HDF’s $110 million “TAPS” hybrid issue and its subsequent redemption
• Rights issues and placements (approximately $500 million in total) for Australian Infrastructure Fund to finance several airport and seaport acquisitions
• Hastings High Yield Fund’s $68m rights issue

Investment structuring and corporate restructures:

• The internalisation of the management of Macquarie Airports
• Establishment of cross-border structures to facilitate greenfield and brownfield infrastructure investments in the United States
• Establishment of Luxembourg-based structures to facilitate European investments
• The restructure of Epic Energy’s financing in connection with its South West Queensland Pipeline expansion
• Refinancing of Cairns and Mackay Airports, and Perth Airport
• Restructure of Hastings prior to its acquisition by Westpac
• Restructure of Carnegie Wylie prior to its acquisition by Lazard
• Restructure of several institutional funds for Hastings

Admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Victoria, Simon holds a Master of Laws degree from the University of Melbourne, and Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degrees from the University of Adelaide.

Simon is the author of several articles on corporate law reform, and is the co-author of a number of submissions to government on the reform of Australia’s securities laws. He also lectures on securities regulation at the University of Melbourne.