Partner
DLA Piper
Reuben Woods is one of New Zealand’s leading M&A practitioners. He has over 20 years’ experience advising listed clients, private equity, trade, VC, CVC, iwi and other buyers, sellers and investors on M&A transactions, capital raisings and other corporate matters. His experience is heavily weighted toward cross-border, multi-jurisdictional transactions. He has a depth of experience in the media and tech, FMCG, and insurance sectors. Reuben is well known by market participants as a dealmaker who offers solutions, keeps deals moving and gets them done.
Amid COVID-19 disruption, Reuben signed or completed some of the highest profile, complex and largest media and tech transactions in the review period, including:
• Advising Accel-KKR and its portfolio company Seequent Holdings Limited on the sale of Seequent to Bentley Systems, Incorporated (Nasdaq: BSY) for ~NZD 1.46 billion (USD 1.05 billion).
• Advising Discovery, Inc. (NASDAQ: DISCA) on its acquisition of all of the shares in MediaWorks TV Limited from MediaWorks Holdings Limited. The MediaWorks’ TV business comprises of: free-to-air channels, Three, Bravo, Three+1, Bravo+1, The Edge TV and The Breeze TV; streaming service ThreeNow; and multi-platform news and current affairs service Newshub.
• Advising Five V Capital Pty Limited on its acquisition of a majority interest in Totara Learning Solutions Limited, a New Zealand headquartered, world leading open enterprise Learning Management System.
Reuben is a believer in the power of diversity of background and is particularly invested in helping people from diverse backgrounds find or create pathways into the legal sector. He is co-chair of DLA Piper New Zealand’s Diversity and Inclusion Steering Committee and leads the firm’s Heritage and Identity Project (HIP) Committee. HIP was established to promote and enhance an organisational culture that is inclusive of all races and cultures while recognising the uniqueness of Māori as tangata whenua in our country. Reuben is from Ngāi Tahu and has led the firm's celebrations of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori through te reo Māori and tikanga Māori courses for DLA Piper staff over a number of years.
In 2020, Reuben was appointed a Board Member of the Cerebral Palsy Society of New Zealand. The father of 6-year-old identical twin boys, one of whom has cerebral palsy, Reuben is of the view that disability can turbo-charge and hone some of the skills and traits that employers look for in employees, such as resilience and problem solving.
