Shannon Platt and Hal Lloyd have joined Sparke Helmore Lawyers as partners in its rapidly expanding Corporate Group.
Shannon joins the Corporate Group as a partner and Head of the Intellectual Property team. She was the Head of the Intellectual Property and Technology Group at DLA Piper in Sydney for many years, where she was also a partner for 13 years. Shannon is a registered Trade Marks Attorney and has extensive experience in IP litigation and the commercialisation of IP, with an international focus. Her clients are drawn from a diverse range of industries including engineering, creative arts, computer software, fashion and construction.
Hal has broad experience in mergers and acquisitions, private equity, capital raising and distressed and restructuring transactions across a number of industry sectors, including mining, agribusiness and technology. Hal worked with Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Melbourne and Sydney for eight years and practised in New York for three years, predominantly with Latham & Watkins. For the past seven years, Hal has been a partner in the Sydney office of Baker & McKenzie. Hal has deep experience in both large-scale and mid-market M&A and restructuring transactions, for example, acting for the administrators of Griffin Energy Group in the sale of Griffin Coal and Griffin Power and in the acquisition by scheme of arrangement of listed public company Nexbis by Agathis Capital, a Malaysian-based private equity fund.
Nick Humphrey, who leads Sparke Helmore’s National Corporate Practice Group, said: “It’s great to have people of the calibre of Shannon and Hal join Sparke Helmore. Like Hal and Shannon, most of our team has worked overseas and for top-tier firms, which means we bring quality international experience to mid-market M&A, ECM and private equity transactions in Australia.”
The firm’s National Managing Partner, Jesse Webb, agrees: “Our Corporate team has grown to be nearly 40 people strong. It reflects the demand we’re seeing for quality mergers and acquisitions, private equity, regulatory, tax, IP and transactional expertise in the mid-market space. The team’s executed more than 30 deals in 2012, which were worth collectively more than $1 billion.”
