A top tier partner has acted on two mega deals finalised this week – valued $135m and $494m.
Baker & McKenzie partner Lauren Magraith has acted for the underwriters of the $135m an institutional placement and selldown of securities in Aconex Placement and the A$494m entitlement offer by Qube Holdings Limited.
Completed this week, joint lead managers and $120m institutional placement of securities underwriters Macquarie Capital and UBS AG (both Australian branches), conducted a selldown of approximately $15m of existing Aconex shares in conjunction with the deal.
Since it listed back in December 2014, Aconex’s share price has gone from $1.90 to $5.60 and was added to the S&P/ASX200 index last Friday, lead partner on the deal Lauren Magraith said.
Proceeds from the institutional placement will be used to fund the acquisition of Germany-based software firm Conject Holding GmbH.
“We have seen an uptick in activity over the past month, particularly in the equity capital markets space,” Magraith told Australasian Lawyer.
“Capital markets had a slow start to the year, both domestically and in most regions offshore, due to macroeconomic factors and market volatility.
“However, post reporting season there has been an increase in activity with a number of secondary issuances and block trades being executed, and potential IPO’s being tested with investors.
“We remain optimistic about the outlook going forward.”
Earlier this week, Magraith completed the $494m entitlement offer announced by Qube Holdings acting for the joint lead managers and underwriters. The proceeds will be used to fund its participation in the $9.05bn acquisition of Asciano Limited by a consortium including Qube, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, CIC Capital Corporation and a Brookfield Consortium made up of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, GIC Private Limited, British Columbia Investment Management Corporation and Qatar Investment Authority.
“It represents the culmination of a long takeover battle for control of Asciano between the Qube consortium and the Brookfield consortium, which commenced back in July of 2015,” she said.
“Both the Brookfield and Qube consortiums have joined together to agree a proposal for the break-up of Asciano’s assets between the various parties, resulting in a $9.28 per share all cash takeover proposal for Asciano shareholders (vs the initial $9.05 cash-and-scrip proposal from Brookfield).”
