Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance grows Australia practice with addition of Andrew Crook and Mark Currell

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance today announced that corporate and private equity partners Andrew Crook and Mark Currell will join its Australia Corporate practice to bolster its local and regional offering to clients in the buoyant private equity, M&A, and alternative funding markets.

"This is exciting for our team in Australia where we're witnessing increased levels of corporate and financing activity in the market. Bringing Andrew and Mark on board further strengthens our thriving Corporate team in these important areas for our clients, many of whom are key domestic and international players," said Richard Gordon, Australia Managing Partner.

"Combined with the quality of our Finance practice in Australia and our global experience in working at the cutting edge of new M&A and Finance products to facilitate transactions, we are confident that we have a compelling proposition for our clients in this market."

The firm has advised on two market-firsts in Australia; advising Barclays as arranger of the AU$250 million Term Loan B financing for Iron Mountain Australia Group Pty Ltd, and more recently Shell on the AU$3.5 billion sale of shares in Australian Oil & Gas company Woodside – the first billion dollar auction completed without a trading halt.

Andrew Whan, Head of Corporate for Asia Pacific said, "We welcome the market leading reputation and global experience that Andrew and Mark bring to the firm. These hires represent an important enhancement of our PE and M&A capability and our Corporate team across the network looks forward to working closely with them."

Both partners bring almost two decades of regional and global experience advising private equity firms and multinational businesses on a wide range of Australian and cross border transactions in the industrials, education, energy and resources, financial, real estate and technology sectors.

"We are delighted to welcome Andrew and Mark who join an Australian team that continues to evolve to provide a bespoke, high quality platform to support our clients in Australia and across Asia Pacific. Their appointment reflects our ongoing commitment to our Australia practice; we recently promoted Dr. Sam Luttrell to partner in Perth, and last year we welcomed litigation partner Angela Pearsall in Sydney," said Geraint Hughes, Regional Managing Partner for Asia Pacific.