Scott Phillips

Home People Scott Phillips

LLB, BCom (Accounting and Finance) (Otago)

Senior Associate

Capital Markets, Corporate and M&A, Shareholder Activism

Contact

sphillips@abl.com.au

Tel: +61 2 9226 7253

linkedin/Scott.Phillips

Fax: +61 2 9226 7200

vCard

Experience Recognition & publications

About Scott

Scott Phillips practices in corporate transactions law with a particular focus on listed company mergers, demergers and acquisitions, public and private capital raisings and shareholder activism.

Scott’s clients span many industries with a concentration in the real estate and funds management space, including many ASX listed REITs.

Scott has been practicing in corporate transactions in Australia since 2006 following two years at one of New Zealand’s leading commercial law firms. During that time Scott was fortunate to work on some of the Australian market’s largest and most interesting transactions, including multiple ‘Deal of the Year’ winners.

Recommended for Mergers and Acquisitions in Australia

The Best Lawyers™ in Australia 2016-2020 editions

Practice focus

Scott's experience spans a wide range of commercial transactions including:

listed company takeovers;
acquisition and demerger schemes of arrangement;
initial public offerings and secondary equity and hybrid raisings;
private company mergers and acquisitions;
shareholder activism; and
all aspects of corporate governance.

Experience

Scott has acted in a range of corporate transactions and commercial matters, including some of Australia’s largest and most interesting corporate transactions:

carsales.com: in relation to its agreement to purchase the remaining 50.1 per cent of SKEncar.com, South Korea’s number one online auto classifieds business, for a consideration of KRW205bn (approximately A$244m). The transaction takes carsales’ ownership and control to 100 percent, following its prior acquisition of a 49.9 per cent interest in the on-line assets of SK Encar in 2014;
Westfield Group: in relation to all secondary equity raisings since 2007, buy-backs, demerger of Westfield Retail Trust and the subsequent re-merger and then demerger into Scentre Group and Westfield Corporation – the latter was the Australian Law Awards 2015 M&A ‘Deal of the Year’ and overall ‘Deal of the Year’;
Fonterra Shareholders Fund: in relation to the trans-Tasman IPO and dual NZX/ASX listing of the Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund – the Australian Law Awards 2013 Australasian Equity Market ‘Deal of the Year’;
Altium: in relation to all of Altium’s corporate transactions and major board governance matters along their journey from ASX minnow (market cap circa A$10million) to ASX darling (market cap over A$1.5bn), including numerous acquisitions and equity raisings and the departure of their managing director, founder and major shareholder in 2012;
Charter Hall Long WALE REIT: in relation to the establishment and initial public offering of the ASX’s first seven-stapled REIT (also advised on the post-IPO simplification of CLW’s structure down to a four-stapled REIT);

Australian Industrial REIT: in relation to all corporate and securities advice for ANI including structuring and initial public offering, asset acquisitions, secondary capital raisings, their defence and response strategy on the takeover by 360 Capital’s listed industrial fund, in what may be Australia’s longest open takeover offer (over 10 months);
Medibank IPO and ASX listing: in relation to the Australian Law Awards 2015 Equity Market ‘Deal of the Year’;
Australand: in relation to the formation and offering of wholesale funds, secondary equity market raisings, executive equity arrangements, AGMs, dividend reinvestment plans, capital rebalancing and finally the takeover of Australand by Frasers Centrepoint;
RARE Infrastructure Limited: in relation to the sale of a majority stake in the privately owned infrastructure fund manager to Legg Mason; and
Trans-Tasman IPOs and dual NZX/ASX listings including the first IPO under the trans-Tasman mutual recognition regime and the New Zealand Government’s state owned asset sales via IPO of Mighty River Power and Genesis Energy.

Scott recently spent six months on secondment within the CBA owned Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFSGAM) business working intimately with the senior leadership team to assist them with CBA’s strategic review of CFSGAM which is considering a range of options, including an IPO of CFSGAM.