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Jared Smith

Jared Smith profile photo.
Partner
Jared Smith profile photo.

Jared is an Australian and UK qualified corporate lawyer with nearly 20 years' experience advising leading Australian and international clients across their entire lifecycle, from establishing businesses to complex corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings, joint ventures, financings and restructures. Jared has a particular expertise in cross-border transactions acting for international acquirers, especially out of the US, UK and Singapore.

Experience

Jared's clients benefit from his international experience, gained during eight years at a top international law firm in London in its Financial Investors Group (encompassing private equity, venture capital, sovereign wealth and more). He also spent time in the firm’s Hong Kong office, advising some of the world’s largest private equity, sovereign wealth and other financial sponsors on cross-border transactions.

Jared also deeply understands clients' commercial needs and pressures, having spent approximately three years working in-house at NSW Treasury and HSBC through three separate secondments. During that time, Jared helped manage the HSBC equity portfolio and represented its interests on the boards of numerous companies. He also advised the HSBC global investment banking team on legal and commercial issues relating to public and private transactions. Most recently, he advised the Commercial team at NSW Treasury, particularly the M&A, Banking, Post-Transactions and Procurement teams.

Jared's clients note that "he provides practical legal advice that enables his clients to achieve their objectives" and his service is "world class and gold standard". Jared has also been noted to be "a pleasure to work with" and a "stand-out lawyer… with very strong finance and corporate skills" and "very…commercial, and he has deep experience from his previous roles internationally meaning that he offers a broader view". In particular, clients note that they “benefit from his ability to guide [them] through the differences between Australian and US law, as well as commercial deal terms”.

Jared advises his clients on all aspects of their businesses and has extensive experience in working with both domestic and international clients in a variety of sectors including tech, financial services, real estate, government, private equity/venture capital, growth companies, education and infrastructure.

Jared’s areas of expertise include:

  • mergers and acquisitions
  • capital raisings
  • corporate restructures
  • joint ventures and shareholders agreements
  • setting up businesses in Australia
  • government
  • employee incentive plans
  • commercial contracts.

Jared is actively involved in the tech and start-up space and has worked with a number of venture capital and growth companies on all their legal needs, including capital raisings and employee incentive arrangements. He is also on the Advisory Board of the firm's LawTech Hub by Lander & Rogers. A founder of a SaaS RegTech business recently noted: "There are nuances to our software-based business model that we wouldn’t have expected someone to be able to grasp right away, but the Lander & Rogers team [led by Jared] clearly has a deep knowledge of technology companies and is always able to bring us the right expertise – from capital raising and intellectual property to commercial contracting, regulatory and employment – to provide practical and commercial guidance and ultimately peace of mind on our specific issues."

Jared was named as a finalist in the Lawyers Weekly "Partner of the Year" Awards in the "New Partner of the Year" category in 2021.

Career highlights

Jared's recent work includes advising:

M&A - buyside

  • NYSE listed Arthur J. Gallagher & Co on its share and asset acquisitions across Australia in both its benefits and broking groups, including acquiring broking, financial advisory, FinTech, consulting and corporate advisory businesses
  • UK listed Pearson plc, the world’s leading learning company, on its acquisition of Smart Sparrow, an EdTech innovator providing industry-leading digital learning technology
  • enChoice Inc, a US-based enterprise content management and digital transformation solutions company, on its share acquisition of Sypht Pty Ltd, an enterprise SaaS platform, which uses AI/machine learning to extract and analyse information from documents
  • Finder, Australia's most-visited financial comparison site business, on the acquisition of another comparison website
  • Polar Capital on its acquisition of a majority stake in distressed JUCY Group's car and campervan rental business in Australia and NZ
  • ARA Asset Management on the Australian law aspects of its acquisition of LOGOS Group, one of Asia-Pacific's leading logistics property groups, with a $9 billion portfolio across the region
  • Aware Super (previously called First State Super) on its successful bid for StatePlus, a financial planning and pension fund business, from SAS Trustee Corporation
  • ASX and LSE listed Henderson Group on its merger with Janus Capital to create a leading global asset manager with a combined market cap of c.$8 billion
  • Goldwind, the largest wind turbine manufacturer in China, in relation to various acquisitions and sales, and commercial contracts and legal issues regarding its current and potential wind farm investments in Australasia.

M&A - sellside

Capital raisings

Government

  • Department of Planning, Housing & Infrastructure (DPHI) and NSW Treasury, in relation to a strategic NSW state project, including advising on structuring of the transaction as well the definitive legal documents and NSW Government legislation
  • NSW Treasury, on all aspects of its Whole of Government procurement processes in relation to the provision of Point of Sale integrated merchant terminal solutions, including from tender through to contract negotiation
  • NSW Treasury, on all aspects of its Whole of Government procurement process in relation to the provision of over the counter (OTC) payment services to NSW agencies, including from tender through to contract negotiation.

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