When the board of AXA Asia Pacific Holdings (APH) rejected a deal in which AMP Capital would acquire the Australian assets of the wealth management company, it signalled the start of what is expected to be a prolonged negotiation, benefiting two top-tier firms.

Mallesons Stephen Jaques is acting for (APH) and Clayton Utz is acting for AMP on the takeover proposal. The lawyers working on the tie-up are also expected to be kept busy by the complexity of the deal. Under the rejected proposal, AMP would acquire AXA SA’s 54% shareholding in AXA AP with shareholder approval and acquisition of the minority shares via a scheme of arrangement. Once that went through, AMP would then sell AXA AP’s Asian businesses to AXA SA.

Clayton’s team is being led by M&A and corporate partners Rod Halstead and Jonathan Algar, and is also working with AXA SA which instigated the deal in order to gain full control of AXA AP’s Asian assets. The Mallesons team is headed by Stephen Minns who is co-head of the firm’s M&A practice.

The APH board rejected an offer that valued its business at A$12.2bn so any subsequent bid will have to be significantly higher than that.