Bakers lead on TXU sale
Baker & McKenzie acted as lead counsel on TXU’s sale of its Australian energy business to Singapore Power for $5.1 billion.Bakers said the sale was the largest M&A transaction ever in
Baker & McKenzie acted as lead counsel on TXU’s sale of its Australian energy business to Singapore Power for $5.1 billion.
The sales process, which involved multiple bidders, was completed in 18 days. A team of lawyers from Baker & McKenzie offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Dallas, Chicago, Washington and London worked on the deal.
The firm said it managed all aspects of the legal process in all jurisdictions including advice on US and Australian approvals, multiple-bidder negotiations and due diligence.
“These transactions typically take at least six months to pull together. No one has ever attempted a deal of this type and complexity in such a short time frame,” said Sydney-based Michael Kunstler, lead partner in the deal.
“Our familiarity with our client’s business, transactional expertise and the ability to provide seamless cross-border delivery across multiple jurisdictions enabled us to document the deal in 18 days in accordance with our client’s expectations.”
“We elected to use a relatively small but experienced core team of seven lawyers avoiding the inefficiencies and lack of focus often associated with a much larger team.”
Apart from Kunstler, key partners involved in the deal were Ken Gray and Ian Kellock (Melbourne), Phil Suse and Jim O’Brien (Chicago), Andrew Christopher (Sydney) and senior associate, Ashley Woods (Melbourne).