Deal: Piper Alderman has advised Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited on its entering into a sale and purchase agreement with Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, pursuant to which BEN will acquire ANZ’s margin lending portfolio, which has a portfolio value of approximately $715 million with approximately 11,900 customer facilities as at 31 May 2022.

Value: Undisclosed

Area: Finance

Key players: The Piper Alderman team was led by James Dickson and Liam Higgins, with assistance from partners Mark Gordon, Shannon Adams, Joshua Annese, Andrew Rankin and Will Fennell.

Deal significance: BEN is one of Australia’s largest banks, with over 2 million customers, 100,000 shareholders, 7,000 employees and gross assets under management in excess of $76 billion.

The acquisition will allow BEN to further grow its margin lending business, Leveraged Equities Limited (LE), one of the leading and longest established margin lenders in Australia. The acquisition is expected to take the combined value of LE’s margin lending portfolio to more than 2 billion dollars at completion.

Head of legal operations at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Nick Clark thanked the firm for their work on the deal.

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“Thanks to James and Liam and the Piper Alderman team for their ongoing provision of timely and commercially sound legal advice, which allowed BEN to enter into the transaction with confidence,” he said.   

“The acquisition aligns with BEN and LE’s growth strategy and ambition to maintain LE’s market leading position in the margin lending industry in Australia.”

Partner at Piper Alderman James Dickson added: “It was a pleasure to have advised our longstanding clients Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and Leveraged Equities on this important transaction and to support the deal team throughout the transaction process. 

“We look forward to seeing the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank and Leveraged Equities businesses continue to grow across the coming years.”