Mallesons has topped both the Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters M&A legal advisor league tables for the first three months of 2010. According to Bloomberg, Mallesons advised on US$8.96bn worth of deals in the Jan-March 2010 period, just ahead of nearest rival Freehills which advised on US$8.88bn worth of deals. Continuing a pattern observed last year, Freehills actually had a higher deal count than Mallesons (9 to 4) but Clayton Utz had the highest deal count with 16 deals.

Australia’s M&A legal market has remained active despite global economic difficulties, with a number of large Australian corporates accessing capital markets over the last 12 months. This has assisted in underpinning the market and, in particular, shored up company balance sheets in a manner which has allowed them to make acquisitions. 

Mallesons partner Jason Watts said that M&A activity over the last six months has been driven by the resources sector and continuing interest from foreign purchasers, including China. “In 2009, sponsors focused on managing portfolio companies through the cycle, with very little new activity.  Now, sponsors are starting to look at more opportunities and banks are increasingly willing to lend again. However, the mega deals of the pre-GFC world are likely to be scarce this year.”

Watts says moving further into 2010, there is the possibility of more scrip-based mergers, involving the offer of shares in place of cash, as well as structured transactions and the separation of businesses.
Mallesons’ most notable transactions this year includes BG’s LNG deal with China Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), being one of the largest ever gas sales to Chinese interests.‬ The firm acted for BG in relation to its deal to sell LNG from its Queensland Curtis project to CNOOC and for the equity investment in that project.

Australia & New Zealand Announced Deals by Volume

Source: Bloomberg

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