Mergermarket M&A Forum - Australia
The premier M&A forum in Australia
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Bruce Miller AO
Mr Miller was appointed as the Chair of the Foreign Investment Review Board in April 2022. Mr Miller has extensive experience as a senior leader in the public and private sectors.
Mr Miller occupied senior positions in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the Office of National Assessments. Mr Miller served as Australian Ambassador to Japan from 2011 to 2017.
Mr Miller holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law from the University of Sydney.
Michael is the Finance Director for New Markets and is also the Group Financial Controller across Zip's 14 international markets. Over the last 12 months, Michael has launched and set up a finance function across three greenfield markets and integrated the finance operations across three global acquisitions, spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He has also assisted in the M&A strategy and financial due diligence for a number of Zip's strategic overseas investments and is the company secretary to Zip's global investment committee.
Prior to Zip, Michael worked at Deloitte for 10 years across three international offices specialising in audit and advisory services in the fintech sector, supporting a number of companies through an IPO as well as buy-side due diligence. Michael has guest lectured for a number of graduate university programs and fintech conferences. He is a member of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from McGill University.
Founding Partner - Head of Technology & Co-Head of Industrials
Luke has over 16 years investment banking experience.
He has completed over 50 transactions across M&A and capital markets.
Most recent listed company M&A experience includes adviser to Coca Cola Amatil on its acquisition by CCEP, adviser to Bingo on its acquisition by MIRA and adviser to Dye & Durham on its acquisition of Link Group.
Luke has Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Laws from University of Sydney.
He started his career in the M&A team at Allens.
Peter founded Stanton Road Partners in April 2019 and brings over 25 years experience of leading advisory roles in investment banking and corporate advisory. Previous roles include Managing Director at Morgan Stanley, ABN AMRO and Luminis Partners. Peter also worked at LEK Consulting and PwC.
Peter’s recent advisory roles include: advising Anchorage Capital Partners on the sale of Affinity Education, advising Lynch Group on its IPO, advising Quadrant Private Equity on the sale of Qscan Radiology, advising Pacific Equity Partners on the sale of Manuka Health, The Growth Fund on the sale of Laser Clinics Australia and Archer Capital on the sale of Healthe Care, advising Metcash on its acquisition of HTHG and defence adviser to Affinity Education Group. Other selected transactions include: advising The Coca Cola Company on its acquisition of a shareholding in Coca Cola Indonesia, advising Bain Capital on its acquisition of MYOB, advising San Miguel on the sale of National Foods and defence adviser to Foodland on its agreed Scheme of Arrangement with Metcash and Woolworths.
Equity capital roles include being the Joint Lead Manager on the IPOs of Virtus, Bapcor, Nine, Monash, APNO and Estia.
Peter has a Bachelor of Economics from University of Sydney.
Kushal is a Partner in PwC's Deals Advisory business and the Asia Pacific ESG Lead for Deals and Private Equity.
Kushal works closely with the global and regional private equity houses, infrastructure funds and their investee companies to accelerate the integration of ESG factors across the lifecycle of their investments to help generate sustainable risk-adjusted returns. This involves working closely with investment teams to identify and quantify material ESG risks and value creation levers during the pre-investment stage of a deal, and developing and implementing post deal ESG value delivery and decarbonation plans.
Kushal has over 18 years of experience across the M&A industry and has worked on over 200 deal situations across Asia Pacific, Europe and the US.
Elena Chan is the General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer at a pay-on-demand fintech, Beforepay Group Limited (Beforepay). Beforepay listed on the ASX earlier this year and the company has been on a significant growth trajectory since its inception in 2019.
Elena has over 15 years' experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Beforepay, Elena spent nine years at Westpac holding various business, legal, and risk roles. Elena was the Head of Group Transformation Office, the chief of staff to the Chief Strategy Officer and the Head of Business Controls for Group Data. She also headed-up the Financial Markets legal team for Westpac's Institutional Bank for several years. She represented the bank in various industry forums including with the Australian Banking Association, the Australian Financial Markets Association and ISDA. She has been a regular speaker at the Annual Regional ISDA Symposium.
Prior to joining Westpac, Elena worked at a number of law firms and corporations in Australia and the United Kingdom, including Morgan Stanley, Simmons & Simmons, Henry Davis York (now Norton Rose), and PwC. She has extensive experience in advising financial institutions across a full range of legal, risk and compliance matters.
Elena holds a double degree in Commerce (Finance) and Law from University of New South Wales and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors course.
Len Chersky is a Managing Partner in Brookfield’s Private Equity Group, responsible for investment origination, analysis and execution in the Asia Pacific region.
Mr. Chersky has over 20 years of commercial and investment experience. Prior to joining Brookfield in 2013, he was Executive Director in Lend Lease Corporation and previously held a number of senior positions in investment banking and financial services as well as executive roles in major listed organizations in Australia.
Mr. Chersky holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a Bachelor of Law, both from University of New South Wales.
Clara is a Partner in the Deals team at PwC in Australia and a member of PwC’s Global Infrastructure leadership team. She has worked on projects across Australia and globally including the UK, US and Asia.
Clara works on transactions with governments, corporates, private equity and infrastructure funds.
Clara has worked on a broad range of transactions including both buy and sell side and public documents including IPOs and schemes. Clara has participated in transactions across several sectors and specialises infrastructure and services transactions.
Aldi is a remuneration and corporate governance specialist who joins Morrow Sodali from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) where he was involved in the strategy, design and implementation of incentive schemes and recognition programs for employees across the organisation. Prior to CBA, Aldi held manager roles with PwC Australia advising ASX-listed and unlisted companies on reward and performance matters, and Glass Lewis where he managed a team of research analysts responsible for proxy research covering companies in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Aldi supports clients across a range ESG offerings including remuneration, board governance, stakeholder engagement and M&A governance. Aldi has recently supported a number of clients with proxy advisor insights, engagement and corporate governance disclosure reviews across a number of high-profile M&A deals in 2021 including: Sydney Airport/Sydney Aviation Alliance, AusNet/Brookfield, Aventus/Home Consortium, Afterpay/Square and Spark Infrastructure/Pika Bidco.
Joseph is Australia Country Executive and CEO for Bank of America.
As Australia Country Executive and CEO, Joseph is responsible for the overall management of the franchise, driving the strategic direction of the business and ensuring a coordinated and integrated approach across the platform.
Joseph is a senior investment banker with over 24 years of M&A and financing experience advising a range of large and multi-national corporate, private equity and Government clients across all industries and products. Prior to joining Bank of America in 2017, Joseph spent 12 years at Goldman Sachs Australia, most recently as Co-Head of Investment Banking Services.
Joseph is graduate of Claremont McKenna College (California) and is married with two children. He is a Governor of The Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation, avid snow skier, and a licensed private pilot.
Marissa is head of the Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) business in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ). Previously, she was chief operating officer of M&A in ANZ, a role she assumed in 2016. She joined Goldman Sachs in 2015 as an executive director on the M&A team and was named managing director in 2019.
Prior to joining the firm, Marissa worked at UBS in the M&A and General Industrials teams from 2005 to 2014. Earlier in her career, she was a solicitor at the law firm King & Wood Mallesons. Marissa is a sitting member of the Australian Takeovers Panel. Marissa earned a Bachelor of Commerce (with merit) and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of New South Wales.
Jamie has been advising Australian and multinational companies on their corporate, M&A and capital markets strategies for over 25 years. Previously, Jamie was Co-Head and Managing Director of Greenhill Australia, and served as a member of Greenhill’s global management committee and prior to that, Jamie was a Managing Director of Caliburn.
Jamie’s major advisory roles include advising Bank of Queensland on its $1.3bn acquisition of ME Bank, advising on the Asaleo response to Essity’s $800m control proposal, advising Suncorp on the divestment of its Life Insurance business $700m, advising Westpac Banking Corporation on its $18b merger with St George Bank and advising Oil Search on its response to a $12b unsolicited approach from Woodside.
Jamie is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and a Fellow of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA), where Jamie also serves as a Lecturer for the Mergers & Acquisitions graduate diploma course.
Mark joined WiseTech Global in 2015 as an advisor on the IPO. Following the successful listing, Mark joined the group permanently as Deputy CFO, with a core focus on forecasting, reporting and process improvement. During Mark’s time at WiseTech, he has led the acquisition process and has been implementing and driving the integration process across acquired businesses. Prior to joining the WiseTech team, Mark spent almost 20 years with PwC in M&A focused roles on buy side, sell side due diligence and public market transactions across Europe and Australia. Mark is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Leeds.
Belinda is the General Manager of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) at the Commonwealth Bank (CBA). She joined CBA in 2017 from Goldman Sachs in Australia. Prior to working in Australia, Belinda spent a number of years working in New York at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, predominantly in equity capital markets.
Belinda is currently studying AICD, is a director on the Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society Pty Limited subsidiary board and she was previously an observer on the Property Exchange Australia (PEXA) Board. Belinda earned a Bachelor of Commerce (with 1st class honours in Finance) from the University of Sydney.
David leads NAB’s Sustainable Finance team and has been active in sustainable debt financing for over 10 years, having joined NAB in 2010. He is a member of NAB’s Corporate & Institutional Banking Sustainability Steer Co and works closely with treasury, risk, coverage, product and markets teams developing and originating sustainable financing and investment solutions for NAB clients across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, UK, Europe and the USA. He has almost 20 years of financial markets experience across a range of product solutions, origination and structuring roles for banks in Sydney, Hong Kong, London and New York.
David has worked with a broad range of clients including sovereigns, semi-governments, funds, financial institutions, corporates and securitisation issuers to establish their sustainable debt programmes. The NAB Sustainable Finance team have arranged a broad range of innovative sustainable financing and investment solutions across a range of global markets including green, social, sustainability and sustainability linked bonds and loans, sustainability-linked derivatives, green deposits, green funds, green and social securitisations and green leasing solutions.
David chairs the AFMA Sustainable Finance Committee and is an active member of numerous industry bodies including the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute (ASFI), ICMA’s Green, Social and Sustainability-Linked Bond Principles, APLMA’s Green and Sustainability-linked Loans Committee, Climate Bonds Standards Industry working groups, Institute of International Finance (IIF) Sustainable Finance WG and the Australian Securitisation Forum ESG WG.
Prior to transitioning into banking David held senior project management and real estate development roles across Australia and the USA. He holds an MBA (Finance) from London Business School, a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance & Investment from FINSIA and a Bachelor of Engineering (Civil) from the University of Queensland.
Brendan Lee
Managing Director, Head of TMT Investment Banking
Morgan Stanley
Brendan Lee is head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Investment Banking for Morgan Stanley in Australia and New Zealand.
He joined Morgan Stanley in 2018, prior to which he spent 12 years at Goldman Sachs and also had experience with Tremblant Capital, Macquarie Group and McKinsey & Company.
Brendan has a career spanning +20 years across investment banking, principal investment, and management consulting and he has worked in both Sydney and New York. He has specialized in TMT for the last 13 years, with a particular focus on the technology and telecommunication sectors, and has served as lead financial advisor on many of the most significant transactions in those sectors in Australia and New Zealand.
Brendan is a University Medallist with a Bachelor of Commerce (1st Class Honours in Finance) and Bachelor of Law from the University of New South Wales.
Maggie is Mergermarket’s Australia Bureau Chief, leading a team of journalists across Australia and New Zealand to write about corporate growth strategies, M&A deals, PE buyouts, cross-border M&A intelligence, as well as data-backed analysis and trend pieces.
Working closely with her colleagues around world, she has been leading the Australian bureau’s cross-border coverage, particularly between Australia and Asia. She also acts as a coordinator on the ground in Australia to facilitate cross-product collaboration between Mergermarket and other sister publications under Acuris, including DealReporter, Inframation and PaRR.
She previously worked at The Australian and Reuters, starting her Australian journalism career in the Press Gallery in Canberra. Maggie has been based in Sydney since 2013.
Tim is the founder and principal of Miles Advisory Partners and has worked in corporate finance since 1997. Tim founded Miles Advisory Partners in 2002 with the specific goal of providing professional corporate advisory services to the mid-market. Since this time, he has led more than 100 successful private and public transactions including divestments, mergers, acquisitions, and debt/equity capital raisings.
Prior to establishing Miles Advisory Partners, Tim held a variety of executive positions specialising in merger and acquisition transactions and capital raisings and has provided advice across a broad range of industries including engineering, resources, manufacturing, distribution, and finance.
James Murphy
James joined Next Capital in 2007, becoming a partner in 2014. James works across all facets of Next Capital’s business including deal sourcing, execution and management.
James is currently a director of a range of Next Capital’s investments including NZ Bus and Eptec, and was previously a director of its now realised investments in Scottish Pacific, Lynch’s Flowers, Funlab, iseek, Infinite Aged Care, Forest Coach Lines and GoBus.
Prior to working at Next Capital, James worked as an investment banker at UBS and Grant Samuel, and as a consultant at Andersen Consulting / Accenture.
Noah is a corporate partner in our Sydney office. He advises PE and other financial investor clients on all types of cross border leveraged M&A including public and private acquisitions, carve-outs, take privates, consortium deals, distressed acquisitions and disposals.
Noah was previously based in London, working in the PE team of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. He is regarded as one of Australia's leading up-and-coming M&A/PE partners by Legal 500.
Noah's recent experience includes advising:
- Bain Capital – on its sale of Only About Children and proposed acquisition of BWX Limited.
- Pacific Equity Partners – on its sale of Lifehealthcare, WINconnect and AutoPacific Group.
- Cerberus Capital Management – on its acquisition of Westpac's auto finance business, Westpac's Strategic Alliances business and Bluestone Group.
- KKR – on its agreement with Campbell Soup Company to acquire certain international operations from Campbell for $3.4 billion. The largest Australian private equity buyout of 2019.
- Hg – on its acquisition of Zenith Investment Partners from 5V Capital.
- Laureate Education, Inc – on its competitive auction process for the A$900 million sale of its operations in Australia (Torrens University Australia and Think Education) and New Zealand (Media Design School) to Strategic Education, Inc.
- Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners – on its participation in the Link consortium that acquired Property Exchange Australia Limited (PEXA) for $1.6 billion.
- Pacific Equity Partners – on the acquisition of Horizon Global Corporation's Asia Pacific business, the acquisition of LifeHealthcare Limited by way of scheme of arrangement and acquisition of WINconnect.
- Quadrant Private Equity – on its acquisition of Konekt Limited by way of scheme of arrangement.
- BGH Capital – on its acquisition of Healius Ltd's medical and dental centres business and proposed acquisition of Healthscope Limited.
- Madison Dearborn Partners – on its acquisition of Quadrant-backed APM Group for $1.6 billion.
David is an Executive Director in IFM Investors’ Private Equity team. Since joining in 2019 David has been part of the leadership team that has reset IFM’s private equity strategies and capabilities. He is responsible for sourcing, leading and managing investments as well as developing IFM’s private equity value creation approach. David has more than 25 years of experience in private equity, strategy consulting and business leadership roles. Prior to joining IFM Investors, David was with Bain Capital for six years following an international career in strategy consulting and leadership roles with Bain & Company, eBay and The Nuance Group. He has a Masters degree from Cambridge University and an Executive MBA from Columbia University.
Reeny Paraskeva leads Jarden’s general industrials team, which also covers consumer/retail, healthcare, telecom and media.
Reeny has more than 15 years’ investment banking experience, including ten years in New York where she was a Managing Director at UBS. Throughout her career, she has advised on more than 50 transactions worth more than $60b across public and private market M&A and equity capital markets.
In addition to more than a decade in traditional advisory, Reeny led the consumer products and retail ECM team at UBS in New York and was subsequently responsible for broadening the US financial sponsors coverage effort, before moving back to Australia in 2020.
Reeny holds a Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Information Systems and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne.
Drew Riethmuller is the Head of Global Corporate & Investment Banking, Oceania for MUFG Bank, Ltd., a member of MUFG, after joining in February 2016.
Drew is responsible for the management and development of the Corporate & Investment Banking business in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. In this capacity, he provides oversight and strategic leadership for the bank’s corporate client business and core products including Project Finance, Loan and Debt Capital Markets, Securitisation, Acquisition Finance and Corporate Advisory.
Prior to MUFG, Drew spent 7 years at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) in a range of senior roles managing the bank’s Global Relationship Banking business across Australia, Asia, Americas and EMEA.
Prior to joining ANZ, Drew spent 17 years at Citigroup where he held senior positions in Fixed Income, Structured Capital Markets and Funds Management across markets including Australia, New Zealand, Americas and EMEA.
He holds a Bachelor of Business and Postgraduate in Business (Accounting and Finance) and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia.
Sam Riley is the CEO and co-founder of Ansarada. Sam’s vision is to help millions of businesses raise and protect their potential throughout their lifecycle. Ansarada is doing this through leveraging all its experience from running +24,000 M&A deals across the globe into the AI-powered platform, which provides the visibility, insights, connections and automation that companies need to be ready for the most important outcomes in their lifecycle, including debt and equity capital raising, compliance, refinancing, M&A and more.
Today, Ansarada is a complete Operating System for governing critical information, so you can reduce risk, boost efficiencies, and drive decision making at every stage of a company's lifecycle. Their portfolio of SaaS solutions now includes Deals, Board, Tenders and Compliance, bringing together the AI-powered Virtual Data Rooms, project management workflow tool, highly secure board portal, and governance & compliance pathways into a single powerful platform.
Ansarada was established with just $30k in capital and now has 200 employees around the world and an annual revenue of~$38m. More than 400,000 professionals use Ansarada’s platform and data rooms for transactions such as capital raising, private placements, IPO’s, asset sales and more. Ansarada has frequently been listed on the Deloitte Technology Fast50 and BRW’s Best Places to Work in Australia Awards.
Sam is passionate about leadership, simplicity, challenging the status quo and serving those less fortunate. Sam has pledged 1 percent of Ansarada’s equity, time and product to the Adara Group, a unique organization working to improve the lives of women and children from Nepal and Uganda living in extreme poverty
Marc Rubinstein, Managing Director
Marc is a Managing Director and has been at Rothschild & Co for over 15 years.
His experience covers complex, cross-border transactions in the Healthcare, Retail and Business Services sectors, with strong private equity and public market expertise.
Marc holds a combined Bachelor of Applied Finance / Bachelor of Commerce (Accounting) Degree from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Currently editorial consultant to Dealreporter and director of Mergermarket Australia, Simon Segal established the Australian bureau of Mergermarket in 2005 where he was bureau chief and Asian editor of Dealreporter (2006-2009).
He has a PhD in the relationship between stakeholders and M&A which he is converting into a book expected to be published next year. He has co-hosted the weekly Dealbook on the former Sky Business channel and has contributed M&A commentary to numerous Australian publications.
He has some 30 years experience in researching, editing, writing and commenting on financial issues, specialising in M&A since 2005.
Ben is a co-founder and Chair of Ad Astra with over 30 years of corporate advisory experience. Over his career, Ben has acted as a corporate adviser providing independent strategic and financial advice to listed and private companies, governments and individuals in relation to a wide range of corporate matters including public takeovers and schemes, takeover responses, private acquisitions and divestments, Government asset sales and scoping studies, capital management and capital raisings. Ben has experience across a broad range of sectors including consumer, retail, property, leisure, gaming, financial services and technology.
Ben’srecent transaction experience includes advising Investec on the sale of its Australian loan book ($1.2bn) and management internalisation of the Investec Australia Property Fund (now Irongate Group), PEP on its acquisition of Citadel($503m), and Xenith IP on its proposed merger with Qantm IP and subsequent takeover defence from IPH ($207m). Other notable clients include Air New Zealand, Asaleo Care, Dimension Data, GPT, Growthpoint, Impala Platinum, Laundy Hotels, Oroton, South Australian Government, SCA, Spark Infrastructure, Steinhoff AsiaPacific (now Greenlit Brands), Tasmanian Government, Tatts Group, UNiTAB, WestAustralian Government, Woolworths and Wotif.com.
Prior to founding Ad Astra, Ben was the Head of Corporate Advisory for Investec Australia. Previously he worked at Wentworth Associates, Macquarie Bank and Hill Samuel in London and was a director of Wotif.com.
Heis a fellow of FINSIA and has a BSc (Econ) (Honours) majoring in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics.
As a Partner in the Corporate Finance team of Pitcher Partners Melbourne, Michael assists many clients, from a range of industries, with their transaction pursuits with specialist services including: lead mergers and acquisitions advice, financial analysis, due diligence investigations and valuations.
Michael leads the Global Corporate Finance group for Baker Tilly International a top 10 accounting network globally.
Clients benefit significantly from Michael’s astute business acumen and persuasive negotiating skills. Clients seeking growth through divestment and acquisition strategies draw on Michael’s networks and knowledge to maximise their business and financial results. He works with many public and private businesses on their buy and sell side mandates.
Jasmine Sprange is an M&A partner for Norton Rose Fulbright and has been an ASX listed financial services GC. Jasmine advises financial institutions on strategic domestic and cross-border M&A, as well as corporate and commercial transactions such as joint ventures, across the financial services, infrastructure and real estate sectors. Jasmine has advised on a number of Australia’s significant strategic corporate transactions and regularly deals with regulators relevant to implementing transactions, including ASIC, APRA, FIRB and ASX.
Ms. Tavill is the global head of responsible investment, leading all ESG and impact initiatives across all businesses and investment strategies at StepStone Group, a global private markets investment firm focused on providing customized investment solutions and advisory and data services to some of the most sophisticated investors in the world. With more than US$548 billion of private markets allocations, including over US$127 billion of assets under management as of December 31, 2021, StepStone covers the spectrum of opportunities in private markets across the globe. Ms. Tavill is also a member of the private equity team.
Prior to StepStone, Ms. Tavill was responsible for AMP Capital’s global alternative investment platform that included private equity, infrastructure and real assets. Before that she spent five years at Van Eyk Research in Sydney, the last four as head of research. Before moving to Australia, she was an executive director at Goldman Sachs Investment Management, responsible for their UK small-and mid-cap portfolios.
Ms. Tavill received a MSc in finance and economics from the London School of Economics, in addition to a BBS with honors in economics and honors in finance from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Georgina Varley is a Director at Adamantem Capital. Prior tojoining Adamantem Capital, Georgina worked in private equity as an InvestmentDirector at Archer Capital (2017-2018) and an Investment Director at Arowana International(2013-2016). She also worked at Macquarie Group (Sydney and London) from2006-2013 in investment banking and principal investment.
Georgina holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws(Hons) from the University of Sydney.
Rohan Wolfers joined Pacific Equity Partners in 2010. Before joining PEP, Rohan was with Navis Capital Partners and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity in Australia, Asia and North America. Rohan received a PLD from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney.