Deanna is dedicated to servicing corporate clients with their strategic, M&A, governance and compliance needs. Clients appreciate her ability to get to the point, find common ground between parties and deliver a solution, a skill she honed during her years of experience leading an in-house legal team.
Deanna also leads our Japan client group and works seamlessly with foreign investors navigating their acquisition and establishment activities in Australia.
Experience
Deanna is highly capable, at ease with complexity and easy to work with. She is a trusted partner to her clients and well-regarded by her peers. She has been consistently recognised in the annual peer-reviewed Best Lawyers in Australia list since 2020.
Deanna works across industries but has a keen interest and experience in the start-up/scale up, technology and resources sectors. In her extensive practice she has successfully closed M&A transactions for sophisticated financial services clients through to SME and foreign clients requiring a patient and thoughtful lawyer. She is also skilled in documenting commercial contracts, including corporate governance agreements, operational contracts and licensing arrangements.
Deanna's areas of expertise include:
- mid to large-scale corporate and asset M&A in sectors
- supporting start-up and scale-up entities from establishment through to exit
- private capital raising advice and execution
- corporate governance and general corporate compliance
- commercial contract drafting (including incorporated and unincorporated joint ventures, commercial agreements, commodity supply agreements and other major contracts)
- contract review and negotiation
- contract dispute resolution.
Career highlights
Deanna's experience includes advising:
- Kent Corporation in its acquisition from PE and founder owners of the Australian and international food manufacturing and distribution business of Frosty Boy
- Delacon Pty Ltd, a SaaS company providing call centre tracking, management and speech analysis services, in its sale to global software buyer Volaris Pty Ltd, an operating subsidiary of Constellation Software, Inc
- NursesNow, a nursing labour hire business, in selling its business to PE-backed Healthcare Australia
- Curvebeam US in its Delaware merger with Australian pre-IPO partner StraxCorp
- Centennial Coal Limited in various joint venture acquisitions in the Australian coal sector
- Fibrecycle in its dual target, tandem acquisitions in the pet food sector requiring coordination of two parallel acquisitions on a "both or neither" basis
- the founder of The Card Network, the leading Australian gift card business, on the sale of TCN to Incomm international financial payments group
- acting for a private family office acquiring a major stake in the Sydney Kings basketball licensee
- Enboarder in various rounds of capital raising (seed and venture capital rounds) and "flip" of the Australian holding company to the US as part of a US venture capital investment
- BCA Logic, a fire engineering company, in its sale by the owners to PE-backed Jensen Hughes (UK)
- JOST Australia, an automobile parts developer and distributor, in a re-write of its supplier and customer contract portfolio
- Management & Training Corporation (US) in its initial joint venture arrangements in the Australian corrections sector and subsequent tendering structures and supporting documentation for new government opportunities in the sector
- HNZ Global on transactions including its joint venture and then merger with PHI Inc., and follow-on "business as usual" work on its helicopter leasing program and other supplier contracts
- the current owners of the Boathouse Group of iconic Sydney hospitality venues in their initial investments and subsequent full acquisition of the Group's ownership
- Norco Co-operative, supporting its board and corporate governance requirements
- Cobalt Blue in its buy-out of its joint venture partner in the Thackaringa Joint Venture, and the resolution of various landowner negotiations
- Comfort DelGro Corporation on acquisitions in the transport sector, including of the Forest Coach Lines group (from private equity) and the Buslink group
- Millrock Resources Inc. on the sale of its Alaskan mineral assets in exchange for ordinary shares in ASX-listed PolarX Limited
- Aniplex Inc. (a subsidiary of Sony Music) on its acquisition of the Madman Anime Group, first as a minority owner and then outright on exercise of an option
- Kent Corporation on its first foreign investment outside the US into an Australian manufacturing business, including negotiation of warranty and indemnity insurance
- First State Super in its successful bid for StatePlus, a financial planning and pension fund business, from SAS Trustee Corporation (government owned)
- Tokio Marine Kiln Group in structuring and documenting its investment by convertible note into insurance technology company Evari Insure
- developing employee share option plans for various scale-up companies' compliance with the ATO start-up concession requirements.