About Chelsey Drake
Chelsey is a corporate governance, capital markets and M&A specialist. She currently sits on the Australian Government's Takeovers Panel.
Chelsey regularly provides corporate governance advice to the boards, general counsel and other executives of both listed and major unlisted companies regarding Corporations Act and ASX Listing Rule requirements, as well as their industry specific and general law obligations. Her listed clients include Aurelia Metals, Central Petroleum, Corporate Travel Management, G8 Education, Michael Hill, National Storage and Stanmore Coal.
Chelsey has played a lead role in a number of significant M&A transactions. Typically she has run these transactions – led negotiations on transaction documents and with relevant regulators, co-ordinated due diligence and the use of other specialists and worked closely with the client on successfully closing the transaction. Her transaction experience includes:
- QIC's sale of Queensland Motorways – working with QIC on the sale of the Queensland Motorways' toll road portfolio, via a competitive auction process, to Transurban for A$7.1 billion.
- Queensland government privatisations – advising the Queensland government on the A$6.7 billion IPO and ASX listing of QR National, the $1.8 billion long term lease of the Abbot Point coal terminal to the Adani Group and the potential long term lease of the SunWater industrial pipelines business.
- Shell's takeover of Arrow Energy – advising Shell on its initial US$771 million investment in Arrow Energy's CSG acreage, on the establishment of an LNG joint venture with PetroChina and on that joint venture's A$3.4 billion takeover of Arrow Energy by way of scheme of arrangement.
- QIC's acquisition of MAPS – working with QIC on its successful bid to acquire the Moomba to Adelaide Pipeline System from APA Group.
- NSW government's sell-down of WestConnex – advising the NSW government on the A$9.3 billion sale of a 51% interest in the WestConnex project to the Sydney Transport Partners Consortium.
- News Corporation's acquisition of a controlling stake in Foxtel – assisting News Corporation with the sale of a 35% interest in its Fox Sports business to Telstra in exchange for a controlling interest in the Foxtel business and on the renegotiation of the Foxtel joint venture agreement.
- Puma's sale of its Australian business – advising Puma on the sale of its Australian fuel business, including its retail network of over 279 fuel stations, to Chevron.
- Stanmore Coal's takeover defence – working with Stanmore Coal on its successful defence of the unsolicited hostile takeover bid by Golden Investments and in relation to the non-binding indicative offer to acquire Stanmore received from Winfield Energy.
- QIC's acquisition of SeaSwift – advising QIC on its acquisition of the Sea Swift integrated marine, transport and logistics business from a group of shareholders including CHAMP Ventures and Toll Holdings.
- Potential National Storage takeover – advising National Storage in relation to the non-binding indicative offers to acquire National Storage received from Gaw Capital, Warburg Pincus and Public Storage.
- QIC's acquisition of Pacific Energy – working with QIC on its first public company takeover transaction, the acquisition of ASX listed distributed generation business Pacific Energy by way of scheme of arrangement.