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Five firms act on capital raising for oil and gas company
Piper Alderman, Sidley Austin, King & Wood Mallesons, Linklaters and Skadden Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom have advised on a capital raising for Beach Energy.
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Firms: Piper Alderman and Sidley Austin (Beach Energy), King & Wood Mallesons (Joint bookrunners for the convertible notes offer, and underwriters for the equity offer), Linklaters (Joint bookrunners on the offshore elements), Skadden Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom (Joint bookrunners and joint underwriters on US law aspects)
Area: Corporate
Value: $345 million
Key players: The KWM team was led by partners John Sullivan and Shannon Finch (pictured). It included partner Ken Astridge, senior associate Paul Mayson and solicitors Laura Steinke and Daiwei Shi.
Deal significance: Beach Energy is an ASX-listed oil and gas company focused on the Cooper Basin. It has an aggressive growth strategy and this transaction will support their aspirations to move into new markets such as Tanzania and Egypt. The deal structure involved fully underwritten one-for-eight pro-rata accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer, at $1.40 a share, to raise $195m with a parallel $150m offer of senior, unsecured convertible notes which are primarily being offered in Asian markets such as Hong Kong and Singapore. “This was an interesting combination of capital raising structures, with a rights offer and institutional convertible bond issue run simultaneously. This is something we haven’t seen in the market for some time. It allows the issuer to broaden and diversify its funding base, as the offers target different groups of investors,” said Finch. Sullivan said the deal was also “good news for corporate bond markets”. “It is the first Singapore listed convertible by an Australian issuer for some time, and it has been well received by offshore investors,” he said.
