The Thomson Financial M&A league tables for the full year 2004, released on 4 January 2005, show that Freehills has dominated its local and international competitors in all categories and on all measures in both the Australia/New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific (excl Japan) legal adviser tables. Not only did Freehills act on more announced and completed deals, the firm acted on the highest value of transactions locally and throughout the region.
In the Australia/New Zealand Involvement tables, Freehills led by $18 billion on the value of announced deals alone and acted on the highest number of announced and completed deals. For Asia-Pacific M&A activity, Freehills again led its competitors by more than $16 billion in announced deals. Freehills has consistently performed strongly in the M&A market and since the inception of the tables in 1997 has acted on more M&A deals than any other Australian law firm.
These results, combined with Freehills' 2004 Australian Law Awards for Law Firm of the Year, M&A Firm of the Year and Equity Markets Firm of the year, CFO Magazine's Law Firm of the Year Award and the INSTO Award for Law Firm of the Year announced in December 2004, demonstrate the confidence the market has in Freehills.
According to Freehills partner Aaron Kenavan, since the Australian federal election, deal flow has increased markedly. 'The listed property sector has seen strong activity, as have the food and beverage and utilities sectors,' said Mr Kenavan.
'We're very pleased the Thomson tables confirm our position as Australia's leading M&A law firm. These results reflect the sheer depth and quality of talent in the Freehills M&A team and our dedication to achieving the best results for our clients. We look forward to doing more of the same in 2005.'
Freehills acted on many of the landmark deals in 2004, including the sale of Loy Yang Power, Tabcorp's bid for TAB, the Deutsche Bank property trusts merger, Prime Infrastructure Group's acquisition of Powerco, Burns Philp's disposal of its herbs and spice business to Associated British Foods, Macquarie Office Trust's purchase of Principal America Office Trust and Prime Retail Group's merger with Centro Properties Group, along with the high profile floats of Pacific Brands and the Just Group.
With 1000 lawyers, including 210 partners, and over 1700 staff across Australia and South East Asia, Freehills is recognised as one of the leading Australian commercial law firms by independent legal guides and directories. Freehills has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Singapore, and correspondent firms in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.