Private Equity

Freehills was the first major Australian law firm to establish a dedicated private equity practice and is ranked as the leading private equity law firm in Australia by PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook, 2008.

Freehills’ Private Equity team is unique among Australian law firms in having a leading practice across all areas of the private equity industry including:

• fund formation
• leveraged buy-outs
• trade sale and initial public offering (IPO) exits
• leveraged acquisition finance, and
• expansion and venture capital.
  

Our clients, large and small, benefit from our expertise developed through our involvement in many of Australasia’s largest and most complex private equity transactions.

Members of our Private Equity team have extensive United States and United Kingdom private equity expertise. We continue to keep abreast of United States and United Kingdom private equity trends and adapt foreign developments where appropriate for the Australian market.

We have advised on:

• the establishment and investment in over 100 private equity funds totalling more than A$10 billion
• various public to private buy-outs, such as the Seven Network’s A$4 billion media joint venture with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Archer Capital’s A$369 million purchase of Rebel Sport
• various management and leveraged buy-outs, such as Newbridge Capital’s A$1.4 billion acquisition of Myer and Pacific Equity Partners’ acquisition of Godfreys
• various trade sale exits, such as the sale of Olex to Nexans and the sale of Taverner Group to the Woolworths led Bruandwo consortium
• various IPO exits, such as Just Group, Pacific Brands, Repco and SIRTeX.

Awards

• CFO Awards, Project Finance Deal of the Year – Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group $1.64 billion port project, 2008
• Joint Outstanding Service Award for advice on legislative reform, Australian Venture Capital Association Limited 2004

Testimonials

• ‘Freehills has come out on top after the flurry of private equity activity that characterised 2006’, Australian Financial Review, 2007
• ‘An incredible breadth and depth of talent right down to the associates’, Chambers Global, 2007