Corporate Advisory

Our Corporate Advisory group is widely recognised as market-leading in New Zealand and the 'go-to' for complex corporate advisory and commercial work. We are known for investing in relationships, advising on ground-breaking transactions, and providing sophisticated, clear advice to significant local and international clients.

Our focus is on understanding the unique priorities of each client and delivering smart, innovative advice in a digestible way, so they can get on with ensuring the deal is a success.
 

Our lawyers work across specialities to deliver advice on a broad range of issues to both local and international clients, ranging from NZX 50 corporates to private equity and fund managers.
Our areas of expertise include:

• Mergers and acquisitions
• Equity Capital Markets
• Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)
• Private Equity
• Commercial contracts
• Joint Ventures and other commercial arrangements
• Investment in New Zealand by overseas entities
• Compliance and corporate governance
• Insolvency and debt restructuring
• Funds management
• Competition and Antitrust
• Technology
• Outsourcing

Some of the recent work we've done with clients includes advising:

• QIC on its acquisition of a 50% interest in Vector's New Zealand and Australian metering business, valuing Vector metering at $2.51 billion.
• Pacific Equity Partners on its sale of Evolution Healthcare to QIC.
• Tilt Renewables on its NZ$3.24 billion takeover by way of scheme of arrangement.
• Fonterra on its sale of its China farms, which consisted of two significant offshore transactions totalling $555 million.
• Freightways on the acquisition of Big Chill, including the NZX compliance aspects of the transaction.
• WEL Networks on the sale of its 85% stake in Ultrafast Fibre Holdings as part of the NZ$854 million sale of the entire business to First State Investments.
• ANZ on the $762 million sale of its asset finance business, UDC Finance Limited, to Japan's Shinsei Bank.
• Auckland International Airport on its NZ$1.2 billion capital raise by way of an underwritten placement and share purchase plan. The capital raising was the largest secondary offering in New Zealand history.
• The underwriters of Ryman Healthcare's $902.4 million capital raise.
• The underwriters of Heartland Group Holdings' $200 million equity raise.

Our Corporate Advisory team is ranked 'Tier 1' for Corporate and M&A in the Legal500 Asia Pacific 2022 guide, Band 1 for Corporate / Commercial in Chambers Directories 2022 and 'Tier 1' for M&A by IFLR1000 2023. We were named 'Outstanding' in Corporate and M&A by AsiaLaw 2021.