Maddocks

Background

Peter has led the Maddocks Commercial team in Sydney since mid 2007.  Prior to working at Maddocks he was an equity partner at Clayton Utz in the Corporate Group.

Peter has a background in Sciences as well as Law and an MBA giving him broad experience across a number of fields and an ability to work well in (and where needed direct or lead) multi-disciplinary teams drawing on his experience across a wide range of market sectors to co-ordinate resources to find acceptable commercial solutions to corporate/commercial legal issues.

Peter has recently been endorsed by the PLC Which Lawyer? 2010 in the Private equity: buyouts area.

Legal Expertise

  • Mergers and acquisition
  • Equity capital markets
  • Private equity/strategic joint venture transactions and director's duties
  • Divestments
  • Restructuring
  • Corporate governance issues
     

Relevant Experience

Acquisitions and Due Diligence

Peter has extensive experience with structuring, investigating and negotiating sale and purchase agreements for, acquisitions of businesses and companies across a range of industry sectors and in both private treaty and public M&A/privatisation processes.

Peter has been the lead partner on numerous acquisitions and sales of companies and businesses, including many multi-stage competitive tender processes.

He has managed numerous due diligence investigations at various levels, from the extremely rigorous to "top-down" early stage acquisition due diligence to assist clients to strategically analyse significant road blocks to a transaction.

Corporate Law Compliance

Peter has extensive experience advising companies on all aspects of compliance with key parts of the Corporations Act and ASIC Policy, including in relation to directors duties, corporate governance and the fundraising provisions of the Corporations Act.

He has been a member of the Law Committee of the Australian Institute of Company Directors since 2001 and in that role, regularly participates in the preparation of submissions to government bodies and other organisations, lobbying on behalf of directors of Australian companies concerning changes to legislation of particular relevance to directors and senior officers of corporate bodies.

Peter also has a very good understanding of, and is often called upon to advise on, the broader corporate governance processes relevant to the control and direction of organisations, both in connection with ASX listings, where the ASX principles of good corporate governance apply, and in the broader context.

Corporate Structuring and Restructuring

Peter is often called upon to assist clients with corporate structuring and restructuring initiatives, particularly by way of selective off-market share buy-backs and capital reductions.  In this role, Peter is often required to work closely with tax and other advisors to ascertain the best methodology by which to achieve the restructuring with minimal direct and indirect tax ramifications.

Engagement with Government/Statutory Entities

Over the course of his career, Peter has worked with numerous entities which are state-owned including advising on processes of state-owned assets to enable the relevant entities to take actions or complete transactions within the relevant legislative framework. Some examples include advising on interpretation of the Casino Control Act; advising on interpretation of the New South Wales State Legislation on the demutualisation of AMP; advising a bidder for New South Wales Lotteries on the interpretation of the legislation of the sale of New South Wales Lotteries and of the Public Lotteries Act (NSW).