Australia: MinterEllison Acts for Pacific Equity Partners in Acquisition of Zenith Energy Ltd.

Pacific Equity Partners led a consortium that included OPSEU Pension Trust and an entity controlled by Infrastructure Capital Services to successfully acquire 100% of Zenith Energy Ltd. The scheme was successfully implemented on 21 August 2020.

MinterEllison acted for Pacific Equity Partners in the acquisition, which expanded their presence in the power infrastructure sector.

The deal faced several complications due to its changing nature and the challenges of the COVID-19 environment.

MinterEllison advised on multiple areas, including managing a scheme involving two voting classes, developing a consortium agreement that navigated the cartel conduct provisions of Australian competition law and drafting and negotiating the scheme implementation deeds.

The deal also required management of a FIRB application and due diligence across multiple countries.

"MinterEllison is delighted to have assisted our long-standing client, Pacific Equity Partners, in building on its portfolio in the energy sector. We're pleased to have successfully brought the complicated transaction to completion within a difficult context of multiple interlopers and the COVID-19 pandemic," said lead partner Chris Allen.

Mr Allen was supported by others in the MinterEllison team, including Michael Gajic, Stewart Robinson, David Moore, Michael Scarf, Anthony Sommer, Mellissa Lai, Aimee Yi, Sam Fong, Andrew Hewson, Alex Doust, Krish Nadarajah and Tom Gallop.

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Chris Allen

I specialise in mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions. I also regularly advise on general corporate, securities law, governance and foreign investment matters, with particular expertise in the healthcare, media, technology, consumer and education sectors.