Freehills recently advised Queensland Investment Corp (QIC) on the sale of its landmark three-tower Central Plaza complex in Brisbane, with the aid of the firm’s cutting edge information technology systems.
The $839.2million deal, which is believed to be the largest commercial property transaction in Brisbane and possibly Australia, was led by Freehills Banking & Projects partner Kerry Heilbronn, and involved conducting vendor due diligence, producing a due diligence report for QIC and creating and maintaining a cutting-edge online data room for bidders.
The world-first data room was designed and produced by a team of Information Managers from Freehills who worked with the client to compile all the information required to complete the transaction. Information for all three buildings was available online and produced in a highly organised structure to ensure bidding teams could locate and review information swiftly.
'Our highly efficient internal technologies enabled us to produce the data room for QIC,' Mr Heilbronn said.
'Our experience coupled with our systems allowed us to produce a data room that clearly displayed the strength of the client’s assets,' he continued.
A key factor in the speed of this transaction was the use of a database system to produce detailed analyses of the three Central Plaza buildings. Through such systems, large teams of lawyers could be available in key periods of the transaction. This approach was designed to significantly increase the speed of the transaction by reducing bidder time in data rooms.
'During the transaction we could talk to our client’s systems' Mr Heilbronn said.
'We built the data room in such a way that information could come from multiple sources simultaneously. This meant our clients could concentrate on the intricacies of the deal and allow us to manage the information,' he said.
As a result of this progressive technology, the transaction has moved through each stage ahead of the expected deadline. The Central Plaza One and Two transactions are scheduled to settle early this year and Central Plaza Three settling on practical completion of the building which is scheduled for late 2008.
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