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Westfield acquired for US$24.7bn
Unibail-Rodamco has been advised on its multibillion dollar acquisition of Westfield, which it says will create the world’s premier developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations.
Jerome Doraisamy
Firm: Allens (Unibail-Rodamco); King & Wood Mallesons (Westfield Corporation).
Value: US$24.7 billion (A$32.7 billion).
Area: M&A.
Key players: The Allens team consisted of Guy Alexander, Kate Towey, Marc Kemp, Tom Highnam, Veronica Siow, Craig Milner and Kim Reid (partners), Andrew Wong (counsel), Derek Health and Larry Magid (consultants), Charles Ashton and Sikeli Ratu (managing associates), Eve Regnard, Dannie Hanna, Rod Aldus, Tom Tian, Chris Clark and Andrew Lazzaro (senior associates), Virosh Poologasundram, Elise Ho and Tegan Ayling (associates), Jewel Zhu and Max Chapman (lawyers) and Ellen Trevanion and Tarun Bhushan (law graduates).
Deal significance: The acquisition will create the “world’s premier developer and operator of flagship shopping destinations”, the firm said in a statement, with a portfolio valued at 62 billion euro and a development pipeline of 13 billion euro.
Allens head of M&A Guy Alexander said the deal had been a “complex, cross-border transaction with advisory teams working in Australia, the Netherlands, France, the UK and the US.
“The transaction has been a landmark one, and transformational for Unibail-Rodamco and Westfield,” he said.
“It has been extraordinary in its size, legal complexity and intensity and we are very proud to have been involved in its successful execution on what was an incredibly tight timetable.”
The transaction was “groundbreaking in many respects”, Allens said, as it was the first ASX listing of a French entity, first listing of stapled shares in France in more than 30 years and the first ever listing of stapled French and Dutch entities.
“Working on such a large and complex transaction takes a large team of people and the working relationship with the Unibail and Allens teams has been fantastic,” Mr Alexander said.
Jerome Doraisamy
Jerome Doraisamy is the editor of Lawyers Weekly. A former lawyer, he has worked at Momentum Media as a journalist on Lawyers Weekly since February 2018, and has served as editor since March 2022. He is also the host of all five shows under The Lawyers Weekly Podcast Network, and has overseen the brand's audio medium growth from 4,000 downloads per month to over 60,000 downloads per month, making The Lawyers Weekly Show the most popular industry-specific podcast in Australia. Jerome is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in NSW, and a board director of Minds Count.
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