Corrs Chambers Westgarth has advised global private equity firm Apax Partners on its US$1 billion cash acquisition of Paradigm Software Group.
An Apax-led consortium has agreed to acquire the global operations of Paradigm, an independent software provider focused on the oil and gas exploration industry with offices in six continents, from private equity group Fox Paine & Company. Paradigm’s Australian operations include a key research and development facility together with offices in Brisbane and Perth. Funds under the advice of Apax total approximately US$40 billion around the world.
James Delesclefs, formerly a partner of Kirkland & Ellis in London, led the Corrs team together with Sydney M&A partner James Rozsa and lawyer Maggie Wong, across several offices to support Kirkland & Ellis’ New York office in advising long standing client Apax.
Corrs engaged a national team to deliver this successful deal for Apax including partners James North, Odette Gourley, Greg Hassall and Jack de Flamingh, together with special counsel Joanne Dwyer, senior associates Melissa Brunning, Alison Jones and Meagan Johnston, and lawyers Daniel Thompson and Annika Martz who provided IP, IT, real estate and employment advice from Corrs’ Sydney, Brisbane and Perth offices.
James Delesclefs and James Rozsa said, “The Corrs team is delighted to be advising Apax on this investment to complement its existing enterprise software portfolio. This highlights both the interest we are currently seeing by global private equity firms in Australian based companies and private equity’s continued appetite and capacity, despite global market conditions, for large secondary buyouts.”
Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Simmons & Co. acted as financial advisers to Apax. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom acted as legal adviser to Paradigm and Jefferies & Company, Inc. as financial adviser.
This is the latest deal for the Corrs Corporate M&A team. Corrs’ strength in M&A was recently recognised as the ALB Australasian Law Awards 2012 where the firm won the highest number of overall awards and five deal of the year awards – the most deal awards of any firm – including Australian Deal of the Year.
Corrs has one of the most active private equity teams in the Australian legal industry. The Corrs Private Equity team has advised private equity investors and management on more than 15 mandates over the past year worth in aggregate more than AU$5 billion, including the purchase of V8 Supercars by Archer Capital, the secondary sale of MYOB to Bain Capital and the sale of Primo Small Goods to Affinity Equity Partners.
