Login
DLA Piper and Corrs ahead on IPOs
DLA PIPER and Corrs Chambers Westgarth have been the stand-out performers in IPOs so far this year, according to the Bloomberg third quarter league tables.Both firms involvement in the…
Zoe Lyon
DLA PIPER and Corrs Chambers Westgarth have been the stand-out performers in IPOs so far this year, according to the Bloomberg third quarter league tables.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Both firms involvement in the Brisconnections Unit Trust $1.2 billion initial public offering shot DLA Piper to the top of the table and Corrs to the number-two spot in term of deal volume (the value was split between them).
It’s a big leap particularly for Corrs, who ranked 59th at the same time last year. Together the two firms hold more than 60 per cent of the market share, far ahead of the rest of the field.
Filling out the rest of top five is Minter Ellison, Gilbert + Tobin and Perth-based firm, Steinepreis Paganin, which — with 16 IPOs — was top of the pile in terms of deal count.
BrisConnections was the winning consortia for the $4.8 billion airport link and associated works, which according to Corrs partner John Walters, is Australia’s largest PPP to date. The consortia (which comprises Macquarie Capital, Thiess and John Holland) was given a 45 year concession to design, construct, operate and maintain the airport link which will be Australia’s largest road infrastructure project to date.
“[The Brisbane airport] is quite inaccessible and this is solving that linking issue as part of a series of major transport infrastructure projects in Queensland,” Walters explained.
Walters said that Corrs was heavily involved in the project right from its commencement in late 2006/early 2007. “We were involved on all aspects of the transactions and all aspects of the raising of equity and debt … from first expressions of interest — because it was a government facilitated project — through to financial close and beyond,” he said.
The deal involved a significant number of Corrs lawyers from a range of practice areas, including equity capital markets, major projects, property, environment and tax.
Meanwhile, the work on the deal attributed by Bloomberg to DLA Piper was carried out by a team from DLA Phillips Fox. The firm acted for Brisconnections Management Company Limited — the responsible entity for the stapled trusts listed on the ASX. Its key player was David East, who was a member of the due diligence committee for the preparation and finalisation of the product disclosure statement.
