Kate is a principal solicitor in our Corporate & Commercial team.
Kate supports clients to build value, achieve key milestones and drive exit outcomes. She has extensive experience across a range of corporate and commercial matters, with particular expertise in business succession, stakeholder agreements, mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings (including private placements, entitlement offers, initial public offerings and backdoor listings), restructurings and corporate governance.
Her recent experience includes:
- Assisting a large family business with a number of acquisitions to drive its future growth strategy.
- Implementing a family succession plan for a large family business, including establishing an overarching family council, supported by legally binding documents tailored to each of the various entities in the group, whilst ensuring all family members had buy-in along the way.
- Assisting the shareholders of a beverage manufacturing company to partially sell down their equity to a large corporate whilst retaining control of the business’ international operations.
- Assisting the majority shareholders of a technology business to exit in the face of opposition from minority shareholders, including implementing and carrying out the prescriptive pre-emptive and drag along right procedures in the company’s shareholders’ deed.
- Assisting over 40 vendors to sell all of the shares in a national holding company to a private equity buyer, including establishing an overarching sellers representative structure ensuring a streamlined and efficient sales process.
- Utilising the experience of our lawyers across both our tax and corporate teams with clear communication and no double-handling to assist a client to restructure into an “investor ready” ownership structure, using rollover relief to avoid triggering any taxing events throughout the restructure process, and assisting with a Series A capital raising.
- Assisting a lead manager with its engagements in relation to a number of pre-IPO private placements, including undertaking legal due diligence on the issuers and undertaking a legal review of the placement documentation including subscription agreements and investor presentations.
- Assisting AustSino Resources Group Limited, an ASX listed mining exploration company, undertake a substantial private placement to fund its acquisition of a controlling stake of shares in Sundance Resources Limited, another ASX-listed mining exploration company, including re-compliance with the admission requirements of the ASX.
- Assisting Synertec Pty Ltd, a private engineering business with its backdoor listing into SML Corporation Limited, an ASX listed shell company.
- Assisting Tesserent Australia, a company with a cyber-security business, undertake an initial public offering and admission to the official list of ASX.
Kate holds a Masters of Law (Commercial Law) from Melbourne University, and a Certificate in Governance Practice from the Governance Institute.
RECOGNITION
Kate is recognised in the Best LawyersTM in Australia for mergers & acquisitions law (since 2021).