KiwiRail mooted as 'deal of the year' candidate
The $700 million deal to buy back New Zealand's national rail network may have been a turkey for taxpayers - but law firms Simpson Grierson and Russell McVeagh are earning plaudits for their involvement.
The firms are the only New Zealanders in the M&A Deal of The Year category and will face off against some massive Australian deals, including the Westpac-St George merger and BP’s acquisition of the Queensland Gas Company, at the Macquarie ALB Australasian Law Awards 2009 when they are announced next month.
Investment bank Cameron Partners and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers also get a mention for their work on the KiwiRail deal.
Although most of the law award finalists hail from across the Tasman, there are still some other local firms up for other awards, with Chapman Tripp, Buddle Findlay and Russell McVeagh also finalists in the insolvency and restructuring deal of the year category, for their work on the Hanover Group debt restructure.
The buyback of the New Zealand rail network took place under a cloud of controversy, with Simpson Grierson acting for the Australian-owned Toll NZ on the sale.
Simpson Grierson’s lead partner on the Toll deal, Kevin Jaffe, is also nominated for the New Zealand Dealmaker of the Year award, with John Strowger from Chapman Tripp, Russell McVeagh’s Pat Bowler and Chris Gordan from Bell Gully making up the other finalists.
Mr Jaffe is also part of the Simpson Grierson team that is up for the NZ Deal Team of the Year award, a group that faces stiff competition for the award from teams from Bell Gully, Chapman Tripp, Kensington Swan and Russell McVeagh.
The news caps off a strong week for Simpson Grierson, after it recently revealed it had recorded its best March ever, and Mr Jaffe says 2008 was a strong year for the company, particularly in the area of M&A transaction.
The winners of the Macquarie ALB Australasian Law Awards will be unveiled in Sydney on May 21.
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Comments and questions9
Deal of the year!- Yeah right. it certainly was for the deal maker and his firm who no doubt received huge fees (which must be the selection criteria for the award nominees), but not for the taxpayer who paid too much for a business that needs large amounts of capital expenditure and has more fish hooks in the contract than a Taiwanese long liner. Some we know about the majority we will never know until the bill comes in.
Now we all see why the world economy is in such chaos.The next thing they will tell us our heads are made of chocolate,and they did the deal for the benefit of NZ. The country booted out the stupid Cullen for buying into such a deal ,a pity the same thing could not have been mirrored with the legal firm.Over in Australia family members who work for Toll there say the company is still dining out on the $120 million dog that fetched close to a BILLION DOLLARS.
Cullen should be made to run this outfit, until the day he dies!!...and some!!
Me, my kids, and my Grandkids, will never ever see this Rail investment, return a profit, and am I right?? someone is maybe going to get an award for working on it, Hells Bells, where are we heading in this world??
Nora....
Wills..
Oh great, now I know the "Macquarie ALB Australasian Law Awards" exist. Sure, I bet all the lawyers feel that they should have their own awards ceremonies to celebrate the best (worst?) of their peers.
This is disgusting. I hope the lawyers in the firms Simpson Grierson and Russell McVeagh choke on their own convoluted ideas of themselves. Can sharks choke?
The only sectors I see going for awards are the Financial industry, the Petrochemical industry, and the Law firms themselves. All three which of course the strung-along government is controlled by.
Yes, quite a round picture of the days we live in and where vested interests lie.
Oh but sweet though we kiwis get a train set, which I am going to use everyday as my primary mode of public transportation because it is so useful, accessible, cheap and reliable. The lawyers get to cruise in their showoff BMWs and Mercs like their delusional dollar dollar bill yo mindset dictates. Stereotypes like this are there for a reason - the evidence is available.
Blame the idiots who voted for the thick sh*t and the NZ reporters who fail to inform voters what is happening
Hey, the deal helped Helen show the UN she was committed to blowing a lot of money on crud infrastructure to claim some sort of "green" feel for the world. She got a great job out of it.
We get to build train stations at the end of the lines (if we can ever afford to repair the lines). And some lawyers get to sound a bit more english than they are at an awards ceremony and talk about it on their websites.
And Michael Cullen proves he is an idiot at valuing businesses and gets directorships.
Well now there has been MSA or( Maritime NZ) in the news.....How about another bit as well...
If anyone would be interested in the ferries, Well check out there seaworthiness....Has a "condition of class" been imposed...
They would of gotten better value from a taiwanese longliner...And definitely a lot safer...
What happened to " a duty of care" or "willfull neglect"...
In other words , Talk about the fraud of the decade...
Don't even get me started on Kiwibank....
Just shows Lawyers don't care who gets screwed, only that they get paid