Mark practices mainly in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, corporate advisory, foreign investment and private equity. He also regularly advises listed companies on a range of Corporations Act, securities and ASX Listing Rule issues.

Mark was Head of Freehills’ national Corporate group for four years from 2002-2006. Under Mark’s leadership, the group consolidated its position as Australia’s leading Corporate team, consistently ranking first in the Thomson M&A and other league tables.

From July 2006 until January 2007, Mark was seconded to Lend Lease Corporation as Group General Counsel. Mark returned full-time to Freehills in January 2007.

Mark Crean is Chairman of the Freehills board, a non executive role.

Mark’s clients include National Australia Bank, Lend Lease Corporation, Warburg Pincus, Australian Capital Equity Group/Seven Network, Babcock & Brown, Austar, Macquarie Bank, CHAMP and the Australian Government.

Some of the recent transactions in which Mark has been involved include:

• Austar in relation to its purposed merger with Foxtel
• A consortium of senior debt holders on the restructure and recapitalisation of I-Med Group
• Pepper Homeloans in its $5 billion acquisition of GE’s residential mortgage portfolio in Australia and New Zealand
• Tinkler Sports Group in relation to its high profile acquisition of the Newcastle Knights Rugby League Franchise
• CHAMP’s $290 million acquisition of Accolade Wines from Constellation Wines
• Perpetual Limited in relation to the $1.8 billion proposal by KKR to acquire Perpetual via a Scheme of Arrangement
• Lend Lease on its $960 million acquisition of Valemus Australia (Abigroup, Baulderstone and Conneq)
• Investec Bank (Australia) Limited on its $203 million acquisition of a real estate loan portfolio from Suncorp Metway Limited
• A private consortium on the acquisition of Pepper Homeloans
• Study Group’s $660 million sale by CHAMP Private Equity to Providence Equity Partners
• National Australia Bank on its $385 million acquisition of Challenger’s mortgage management business and associated acquisition of a portfolio of $4 billion of residential mortgages
• Lend Lease Corporation on the establishment of Capella Capital, a partnership with the former infrastructure team of Babcock & Brown, focussed on PPP projects
• Warburg Pincus on its complex and innovative cornerstone investment in Transpacific Industries and Transpacific’s associated $800m accelerated entitlement offer, partially underwritten by Warburg Pincus, resulting in Warburg Pincus holding 30.7% of Transpacific
• Babcock & Brown on its joint venture with GPT including its reorganisation and spin-off into a separate entity from GPT
• National Australia Bank on its $825 million acquisition of Aviva Australia’s wealth management business
• CHAMP on its acquisitions of Lindores Group and Golding Contractors
• Castle Harlan Inc on the sale of its 83% interest in Americast to Bradken and Bradken’s associated institutional placement
• National Australia Bank on its investment in Pengana Capital
• Archer Capital on its acquisition of Australian Helicopters
• Advising ABC Learning Centres in relation to its recent solvency issues including its suspension from ASX
• National Hire Group on its joint $2.2 billion acquisition with Carlyle Group of Coates Hire and the creation of a 50/50 joint venture with Carlyle (The Banker’s Australian Deal of the Year – 2008)
• MFS Group (now Octaviar) on the corporate restructure and refinancing of Stella Group, and sale of 65% of Stella to CVC
• Seven Network in relation to its media joint venture with Kravis Kohlberg Roberts, in particular ensuring compliance with media and foreign investment laws
• The Australian Government on ‘T3’—the sale of its remaining 51% shareholding in Telstra (Australian Deal of the Year 2007, and Equity Market Deal of the Year, Australian Legal Business)
• Austar on the sale by CHAMP and senior management of approximately 44% of Austar by way of sale to LibertyGlobal and also a block sale through the market (CFO’s Deal of the Year, and Australian Venture Capital Association’s Buyout of the Year, 2006)
• Seven Network on the establishment of Yahoo!/7, its 50/50 joint venture with Yahoo! Inc. for internet, mobile and IPTV, and
• Cashcard on its sale, by scheme of arrangement, to First Data Resources.

Prior to joining Freehills, Mark was in-house counsel with Channel Four Television in London, which he joined after practising as a barrister in London.

Mark is recognised in Best Lawyers International as a leading lawyer in mergers & acquisitions, private equity and media. He is recommended by PLC Which Lawyer? in corporate/M&A, private equity, telecommunications, IT and e-commerce and is listed in the top tier for telecommunications and media in Chambers Global.

Mark is a member of Freehills Board.

He is also a member of the Corporations Committee of the Law Council of Australia.