Singapore firm WongPartnership and Freehills have acted for private equity firms Carlyle Group and TPG Capital in their successful takeover battle for private hospitals operator and pathology provider Healthscope.
The US$1.54bn deal – a cross-border transaction between Singapore and Australia – is the first major private equity deal in Australia since 2007.
The mandate was won by WongPartnership and Freehills through a competitive bid pursuant to an open auction process. Freehills advised TPG and Carlyle Group on the due diligence, consortium arrangements and M&A regulatory aspects of the acquisition.
WongPartnership has acted on a number of similar deals, most notably for TPG Capital as lead counsel in the financing and as co-counsel in the acquisition aspect of all issued shares of United Test and Assembly Centre in 2007 – at US$1.6bn the biggest buyout in the technology sector in Singapore that year.
The partner leading the WongPartnership team was Chan Sing Yee and the partner leading the Freehills team was corporate partner Baden Furphy.
Other deals on which Freehills has advised TPG include the acquisition of Myer, the IPO of Myer and the participation in APA consortium bid for Qantas. Freehills also advised National Hire/Carlyle Group on the acquisition of Coates Hire – Australia’s largest ever leveraged buy-out of a publicly listed company at the time. ALB
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