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Mark Standen has more than 30 years' experience in commercial and financial services sector M&A transactions. Mark is the leader of the firm's Corporate Advisory Team. He has a strong practice advising on Corporations Act and Listing Rule compliance, mergers and acquisitions, demutualisations, insurance industry restructuring, joint ventures, and corporate governance issues including directors' and officers' duties and the law of meetings. Mark also advises government agencies and government owned corporations on restructuring, statutory interpretation, legislative drafting and regulatory and governance issues. Some long-standing clients include AMP, Allianz, Ausgrid, Medibank, Macquarie and Suncorp. Mark led the regulatory work stream for the NSW Government and advised on the special transaction legislation and regulatory separation issues for the Ports transactions, working closely with NSW Treasury and the Crown Solicitor's Office. He is also centrally involved in the refinancing of the Port of Melbourne, Port of Darwin and Fremantle Port. Mark regularly lectures on corporate law reform, co-authoring titles on Partnerships and Joint Ventures in Halsbury's Laws of Australia, the Joint Venture section of the Australian Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents and the Meetings Chapter of Australian Corporation Law Principles and Practice.
Acted together with Allen & Overy as joint legal advisers to the Lloyds Banking Group on the sale of its Australian asset finance business, Capital Finance Australia Ltd (CFAL), and its corporate loan portfolio, BOS International Australia Ltd (BOSI) to Westpac Banking Corporation for approximately A$1.55 billion in total.
The sole legal adviser to NSW Treasury in relation to the $1.75 billion sale (by way of long term lease) and privatisation of Port of Newcastle, which is the world's largest coal export port. The A$1.75 billion restructure and refinancing transaction establishes a new benchmark in transaction preparation and execution, as reflected in the financial outcome which significantly exceeded market expectations. The transaction will free up much needed capital to help the NSW Government fund the revitalisation of the Newcastle CBD, and a backlog of other critical public infrastructure across New South Wales, including hospitals, schools and roads.
Acted for Insurance Australia Group Limited (IAG) on the $1.85 billion acquisition of the Australian and New Zealand insurance underwriting businesses of Wesfarmers Limited, the number 1 and number 5 general insurers in Australia respectively. ACCC approval has been granted after close analysis but without the ACCC releasing a Statement of Issues.
Advised Interim HealthCare Inc, a network of home-care, hospice and health staffing franchises backed by private equity firm The Halifax Group, on its acquisition of the Just Better Care group, a franchisor of in-home nonmedical and medical-care services across Australia.
Our Ports team is the leading legal specialists in this sector, with key roles advising on all recent major national port refinancing deals. We were the sole legal advisers to NSW Treasury in relation to the A$5.07 billion restructure and refinancing of the State-owned assets of Port Botany and Port Kembla, with proceeds from the transaction to be invested in the NSW Government's infrastructure fund, Restart NSW. The transaction was completed on 31 May 2013 and considered the largest and most complex of its kind in Australia.
Advised the New South Wales Government (NSW Treasury) on the refinancing of Port Botany and Port Kembla in NSW. The project was unique, involving the contemporaneous refinancing and long term lease of two major Australian ports. Our role included extensive legal analysis of the existing assets and businesses and the regulatory landscape; recommending a transaction structure; drafting special transaction legislation; asset restructuring; preparing extensive interrelated transaction documents; tender process and negotiations; and implementation under legal project management. The project was complex and very significant for NSW, with the transaction widely considered to establish a new benchmark in transaction preparation and execution.
Advised the Australia subsidiaries of Lloyds Banking Group on the sale of portfolios of property loans in Australia and New Zealand to Morgan Stanley and a consortium comprising Goldman Sachs and Brookfield.