The annual IFLR Asia-Pacific Awards celebrate legal innovation in cross-border transactions, and the teams and individuals behind those transactions.

"The awards are a fantastic recognition of our expertise and experience acting on the region's most complex, high-value and cross-border matters," said M&A/Capital Markets co-lead Con Boulougouris.

"Being awarded both the Deal of the Year for our restructuring work on Boart Longyear, as well as National Law Firm of the Year, speaks to our corporate M&A team's growing reputation as the region's go-to law firm for Australian domiciled deals that require cross-border expertise and know-how," said Mr Boulougouris.

MinterEllison was awarded the Restructuring Deal of the Year for its work with Centerbridge Partners, L.P (Centerbridge) in relation to the successful restructure of Boart Longyear Limited (ASX: BLY), which received final court approval in October 2021.

It involved a highly complex restructure comprised of interconditional creditor schemes, a US$830 million debt for equity conversion and a redomiciliation scheme of arrangement to change BLY's corporate domicile to Canada. Additionally, if shareholders did not want to receive shares in the new Canadian parent company as part of the restructure, a buy back alternative was arranged for shareholders to sell up to a cap of US$2.5m.

"MinterEllison has played a central role advising on many of the most innovative and market-shaping transactions in the past year, over half of which had cross-border elements to them," said M&A/Capital Markets co-lead Joseph Pace.

"Highlights include advising on JBS's takeover of Huon Aquaculture and Essity Aktiebolag on its take private acquisition of ASX-listed Asaleo Care, acting for the consortium of Salter Brothers, GIC and Partners Group on their A$620m acquisition of the Travelodge portfolio – the largest ever hotel portfolio sale in Australia; and Global Forest Partners LP in the sale of Green Triangle Forest Products to investment house AXA IM – one of Australia's largest timber transactions in over ten years," said Mr Pace.

MinterEllison advised on over 100 M&A deals during 2021, ranking second in deal volume across the MergerMarket and Refinitiv League Tables.

Based on the high volume of transactions involving cross-border advice in the Asia Pacific, the M&A team analysed investment trends and prospects for investors in the recently released Asia Report: Year in Review. It looks at deals and future trends in China, Japan, Korea and the emerging market Indonesia.