Partnering with clients to provide on-demand contract lawyers, giving in-house legal teams the confidence to be agile.
One of Australia’s foremost corporate advisers, John Steven heads MinterEllison's National Corporate Division and is a member of the MinterEllison Board.
He practises in the corporate and securities industry area, particularly mergers and acquisitions, takeovers, capital raisings, joint ventures and corporate governance. He also has an extensive general corporate practice with significant expertise in privatisation of government business enterprises, government infrastructure and tender projects.
John’s major clients include public and private companies, stockbrokers, merchant and investment bankers and government entities. They comprise leading organisations such as Consolidated Media Holdings, Consolidated Press Holdings Gloucester Coal, Mirvac, Pacific Brands, Sigma Pharmaceuticals, Toll Holdings, Victorian WorkCover Authority, Village Roadshow and Places Victoria.
John’s industry standing and expertise is widely recognised in numerous peer guides. He is consistently recommended as both a leading Australian corporate lawyer and a leading practitioner in mergers and acquisitions and equity capital markets.
Advised Baring Private Equity Asia in relation to its A$1.2 billion buyout and take-private proposal of ASX listed SAI Global Limited.
Acted for the Board and senior management of Pacific Hydro Pty Ltd in the sale by IFM (as fund manager of its Australian Infrastructure Funds) of its Pacific Hydro renewable energy business to China State Power Investment Corporation.
Advised ASX-listed Citadel Resource Group Limited, on the recommended A$1.25bn cash and scrip takeover offer from copper producer Equinox Minerals Limited. The deal combined Citadel's advanced Jabal Sayid copper and gold project in Saudi Arabia with Equinox's Lumwana copper project in Zambia to form a company with a potential 260,000 tonnes of copper production a year by 2015. The successful takeover launched the combined group into the mid-tier of global copper producers.
Advised Gloucester Coal on its A$8bn merger with Yanzhou Coal Mining and its wholly owned subsidiary Yancoal Australia by scheme of arrangement. This was the biggest investment by a Chinese state-owned company in Australia's coal industry, continuing a trend of state-backed entities seeking to shore up China's resource security. It created one of Australia's largest listed mining companies, operating mines in NSW and Queensland and with investments in two coal export terminals – Wiggins Island in Gladstone and NCIG in Newcastle.
Advised Healthscope in its A$2.7bn takeover by scheme of arrangement by private equity consortium Texas Pacific Group (TPG) and The Carlyle Group. The recommended offer was the culmination of an intense bidding war between a number of private equity groups. Given the bidding duel, the transaction dynamics and strategies changed regularly and quickly. We had a key advisory role and were able to provide urgent and constant strategic and legal input as required in the bidding process.
Advised on the acquisition of all the issued capital of U & D Mining Industry (Australia) Pty Ltd by U & D Coal Limited. The acquisition occurred as part of an IPO process. The transaction involved the acquisition of a material set of near term highly prospective coal assets which form the key projects under pinning U&D's IPO.
Advised listed A-REIT Mirvac on the sale of its hotel management business, Mirvac Hotels & Resorts and various associated investments to a consortium comprising Accor Asia Pacific and Singapore-based Ascendas. The complex transaction involved the concurrent sale of the hotel management business and the stake in an unlisted hotel fund which will see Accor take on the management of 48 hotels and also acquire, with Ascendas, a stake in an unlisted Mirvac hotel fund that owns seven properties.
Acted for Cheung Kong Holdings Limited, Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Limited & Power Assets Holdings Limited in the successful takeover of Envestra Limited, one of Australia's largest natural gas distributors.