Don is a partner in the firm's corporate group. He is a specialist corporate, securities, and M&A lawyer. He also practices in the information and communications technology (ICT) area.
Don co-heads the firm's equity capital markets group. His wide-ranging corporate expertise includes takeovers, securities issuance, corporate restructuring, and compliance. He acts for all types of participants in the capital markets, including listed companies, major institutional investors, and fund managers.
Don is a leading adviser on ICT outsourcing and procurement and heads the firm's Wellington ICT team. The team's strong record of achievement ranges from assisting in procurement process design and RFI/RFP stages to contract negotiations and finding commercial solutions to project problems.
- Chambers Global Corporate/Commercial 2013 - Leading Lawyer
- Asialaw Leading Lawyers Capital Markets 2013 - Recommended Lawyer
- IFLR1000 Capital Markets 2013 - Leading Lawyer
Examples of Work
- Genuine Parts Company - New Zealand aspects of the US$950 million acquisition of Exego Group (owner of the Repco chain)
- Guinness Peat Group - $158 million return of capital to shareholders by shareholder-approved scheme of arrangement, and capital note issues and rollovers, ranging from $215 million to $350 million (total of $815 million raised)
- OceanaGold Corporation - C$93.3 million "bought deal" equity raising, $107 million public offer of subscription receipts, and redomicile to Canada and C$90 million securities offering
- New Zealand Oil & Gas - $100m recapitalisation of Pike River Coal (including interim funding, placement/rights issue participation and convertible notes totalling NZ$60 million)
- Agria Corporation (a NYSE listed Chinese agriculture business) - $120 million investment in PGG Wrightson as part of a $250 million capital raising, and associated strategic co-operation agreement
- Haier Group Corporation - $80 million investment in cornerstone shareholding in Fisher & Paykel Appliances and associated co-operation agreement
- Bureau Veritas - New Zealand aspects of A$146 million acquisition of Amdel (including NZ Labs)
- Inland Revenue - KiwiSaver implementation, mainframe outsourcing to EDS, telecommunications outsourcing to Telstra, document imaging project, call centre projects, and desktop outsourcing project
- Land Information New Zealand - Landonline development projects with IBM
- Ministry for the Environment - Carbon Accounting System
- Various councils and tertiary institutions - technology projects including financial and document management systems, and facilities management outsourcing
Other Credentials
- Government Review of the Overseas Investment Act - Technical Reference Group member
- Listed Companies Association - Executive committee member
- NZ Markets Disciplinary Tribunal - Member
