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International acts on majority of top 10 M&A deals
An ASIC report has revealed the top 10 Australian takeover bids and schemes of arrangement in the second half of 2016, of which an international firm acted on seven.
Tom Lodewyke
The report ASIC regulation of corporate finance: July to December 2016 shows that MinterEllison acted on seven of the 10 largest takeover bids and schemes of arrangement in Australia over the period.
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The total value of the top 10 deals came to almost $4.5 billion. Of this figure, the deals on which MinterEllison acted comprised nearly $3.5 billion.
The highest value deal over the period was Baring Asia Private Equity Fund VI’s successful bid for SAI Global Limited, worth just over $1 billion and on which Minters advised Baring.
The other deals in the top 10 that Minters acted on were Bradken/Hitachi Construction Machinery Co; UGL/CIMIC; S. Kidman & Co/Australian Outback Beef; Fantastic Holdings/Steinhoff International; Vitaco/Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holdings and Primavera; and Patties Foods/Australasian Foods.
“This level of success in Australia’s top public M&A deals is an outstanding result and reflects our firm’s deep expertise in public M&A,” said MinterEllison public M&A partner Michael Gajic.
“There were also innovative features in those transactions introduced by MinterEllison, such as the liability cap in the SAI Global buyout, the deal protections in Vitaco and the consideration structure in Patties.”
Five of the seven transactions the firm acted on featured a foreign acquirer, continuing the trend of foreign investment in Australia, according to MinterEllison specialist FIRB partner David Moore.
ASIC noted that based on documents lodged or publicly released, there were 41 separate control transactions during H2 2016 – almost double the 22 recorded in H1, but consistent with the 42 in H2 2015.
While the overall deal value in H1 2016 was considerably higher than in H2 – $11.3 billion and $5.6 billion respectively – this was buoyed by the $9 billion Asciano takeover.
