About Sean Cole
Sean is an investment funds law and funds M&A specialist advising private capital and listed clients on fund formation matters, LP investments, funds-related mergers and acquisitions work and financial services law.
He regularly advises on the structuring and negotiation of funds, capital partnerships, platforms, co-investment structures and consortia arrangements across a range of alternative asset classes, including real assets, renewables, private equity, venture capital and credit. Sean also has a deep practice advising superannuation and institutional clients on all aspects of their domestic and international fund investments, bringing his knowledge of the superannuation regulatory environment to the negotiation and structuring of fund terms.
He regularly speaks at industry body events and contributes to industry policy submissions, including with the Australian Investment Council and Property Council of Australia.
Sean's relevant experience includes:
Fund, capital partnership and platform formation
- Aware Super and Barings: on the formation of the WeAreLiving platform, comprising a $2bn-plus Build-To-Rent pipeline
- Global private equity investor and Tetris Capital: on the formation of a Social and Affordable Housing Fund
- Novus: on the formation of:
- Novus on Spencer venture alongside Japanese Investor and Developer Kanden Realty & Development
- 'Novus on Bowen' wholesale fund in partnership with Aliro Group
- Phoenix Property Investors and Centennial Property Group: on the formation of a capital partnership to develop a logistic park adjacent to Brisbane Airport
- IFM: on the formation of wholesale fund partnering with Australian Retirement Trust to develop the Healthcare and Life Sciences hub project (Sydney University)
- Mirvac: on the formation of the Mirvac Industrial Venture with Australian Retirement Trust and associated transactions in relation to Switchyards, Aspect South and Aspect North
- GPT: on its mandate to manage an institutional investor's $2.8bn commercial and retail property portfolio
- Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Infratil: on the formation of the Mint Renewables platform
- GPT: on the expansion of its funds management platform with the addition of a +$1bn portfolio of student accommodation assets managed on behalf of QuadReal
- Formation of the Aware Super Real Estate platform in partnership with Altis Property Partners, creating a $1.5bn portfolio of industrial, office and residential assets across Australia
- HESTA and Nuveen Real Estate: to acquire the Castleforbes Business Park in Dublin to develop a build-to-rent scheme with a gross development value in excess of EUR500m
- Hostplus and Morrison: on the formation of the Chrysalis renewables platform
- Mirvac and Morgan Stanely Real Estate: on the formation of an industrial and logistics platform.
LP-led secondaries
Lead Partner of Allens' funds secondaries practices, regularly advising private capital clients on all forms of LP-led secondary sales transactions and portfolio sales of LP interests spanning buyout, venture capital, growth, credit and infrastructure.
GP-led secondaries
Advising on continuation fund structures for domestic PE sponsors and advising anchor investors on continuation fund transactions (including multiple investors in Blackstone and Resolution Life's $3bn continuation fund equity raising and Aware Super as anchor investor in Stonepeak's €2.1bn equity recapitalisation of EUNetworks via a continuation fund transaction).
Change of management transactions
- Mirvac on its proposals for management rights of certain funds in the $10bn Australian Prime Property Fund series
- The investor commitment of AWOF in relation to Mirvac's change of manager proposal for the $8bn Mirvac Wholesale Office Fund
- Plenary on its proposal to the investors in the AMP Capital Community Infrastructure Fund that it be appointed the fund’s new investment manager
- Consortia take-private transactions, including Hostplus and Charter Hall, in relation to its bid for HPI (ASX:HPI); CSC and Morrison in relation to the take-private of Uniti Group (ASX: UWL); Aware Super on its co-underwrite of TPG's take-private InvoCare (ASX:IVC); GIP in relation to its take-private of Asciano ((ASX: AIO) and associated consortia and co-investment arrangements.
Funds-related M&A
- The RE of the FSREC Property Fundand investment manager Fort Street Real Estate Capital: on the 100% acquisition by ISPT of the remaining units on issue by way of judicial advice and trust scheme
- Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation: in connection with its sell-down of Canberra Data Centres
- Resolution Life: in relation to the sale of Opal Healthcare
- A fund managed by the Mirvac Group: on the sale of the Travelodge portfolio to funds managed by Salter Bros and its capital partners GIC and Partners Group
- Crestone Wealth Management: on its $475m acquisition by global private banking and asset management group LGT Group
- AMP Life: on its sale by AMP to Resolution Life
- Aware Super: as part of its consortium bid alongside funds managed by Palisade Investment Partners for the Snowtown 2 Wind Farm
- AMP Capital Investors: (on behalf of its managed client) in relation to its acquisition of a 49.9% stake in Brookfield managed vehicles owning 50 and 60 Carrington Street
- NSW Treasury Corp: in relation to the sale of its interest in International Parking Group to its co-owners Prime Super and funds managed by Colonial First Global Asset Management.
LP investments
Including Hostplus, Aware Super, UniSuper, HESTA, MLC, Future Fund, Colonial First State, Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and Cbus on a range of alternative investments across all asset classes, co-investments and evergreen vehicles with domestic and global sponsors.