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Mallesons acts on new retail bond offering
Mallesons has acted for Primary Health Care Limited on the first retail bond offer to be made under ASIC's new class order.
The New Lawyer
Mallesons Stephen Jaques has acted for Primary Health Care Limited on the first retail bond offer to be made under the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's new class order.
ASIC's new rules facilitate the issue of listed bonds by reducing the disclosure burden on eligible issuers. Primary Health Care is seeking to raise approximately $125 million under the offer. Funds raised will be used to repay part of Primary’s existing debt, which will lengthen its overall debt maturity profile and diversify its funding sources. National Australia Bank and Evans and Partners are acting as joint arrangers and, together with Deutsche Bank and Ord Minnett, are acting as joint lead managers to the issue. The Mallesons team included partners, David Eliakim, David Friedlander and Phil Harvey with senior associate, Jonathan Grant and solicitors John Eagleton and Hoda Nahlous. M&A partner, David Eliakim, said: "It is exciting to see the new regulatory arrangements for retail bond offers being used for the first time. The new rules are designed to make the bond issuance process simpler and quicker and our experience on this transaction was that the new rules work well. We expect that a number of other corporates will consider retail bond issuance in light of this deal." Eliakim said: "We appreciated the opportunity to work with the Primary team again, having assisted this client with its transforming acquisition of Symbion in 2008 and on a number of other projects since."
