Freehills tops the M&A league tables in a buoyant 2007
02 January 2008Freehills experienced a brilliant year in a strong legal market for mergers and acquisitions, with a clean sweep of the 2007 Bloomberg M&A League Tables. Freehills ranked number one in all categories of the Australia/New Zealand and Asia-Pacific ex Japan Bloomberg Tables, released 2 January 2008 (see pp. 5-10, Bloomberg Results).
Freehills topped the tables on the number (141) and value (US$100.04 billion) of announced deals and is the only Australian law firm to have outranked its competition in the Bloomberg Australia/New Zealand M&A League Tables for four consecutive years. Freehills leads the market with a 44.2% market share, according to Bloomberg.
In discussing the developments during the second half of 2007, Freehills’ partner Rebecca Maslen-Stannage said, “Following on from an intense year of M&A activity in 2006, 2007 saw the biggest ever Australian acquisition by scheme of arrangement being the acquisition of Coles Group by Wesfarmers, as well as the largest completed takeover, that of Rinker by CEMEX.
Ms Maslen-Stannage said “It’s been an incredibly strong market in 2007. That strength is continuing although with the credit crunch the shape of deals is changing. We expect more scrip deals and trade buyer mergers in 2008.” As to private equity Ms Maslen-Stannage said: “There’s no doubt highly geared transactions have got tougher, but deals like the National Hire / Carlyle Coates deal show the money is still there for the right deals.”
Landmark deals Freehills acted on in 2007 include Coles Group in relation to its $20 billion acquisition by Wesfarmers (Australia’s largest ever scheme); Rinker Group on its $16 billion takeover by CEMEX, (the biggest hostile takeover in Australian corporate history); Babcock & Brown and Singapore Power’s $8 billion acquisition of Alinta; Promina Group on its $8 billion merger with Suncorp Metway Limited (one of the largest-ever Australian financial sector mergers); and Fairfax Media on its $9 billion merger with Rural Press.
For more information contact:
Public Affairs Assistant Manager
jeremy.hyman@freehills.com
+61 2 9322 4957+61 448 390 798
