The following are examples of Greenwoods & Freehills’ work with some of Australia’s major companies that are in the public domain, and that illustrate the technical capability of our practice and our involvement in some of the most complex and emerging tax issues in Australia. 

• Advised Westfield Group on the creation of Westfield Retail Trust. This involved the reorganisation and transfer of a co-ownership interest in a portfolio of 54 Australian and New Zealand shopping centres from Westfield Trust to the newly created Westfield Retail Trust.
• Advised TPG Capital on its lead role in the deleveraging and restructure of the Alinta Energy Group.
• Acted on the Challenger Life acquisition of the Challenger High Yield Fund (HYF).
• Advised Santos on its acquisition of Eastern Star Gas.
• Advised Transurban on its acquisition of the Lane Cove Tunnel from receivers.
• Advised Australand on the formation of a logistics joint venture with Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC).
• Represented GE Capital Finance Australasia in its successful Federal Court appeal against the ATO’s income tax assessment in which the ATO claimed that a tax consolidation election was invalid due to mistakes made in completing the relevant ATO form.
• Acted for BHP Billiton on its proposed joint venture with Rio Tinto, combining their iron ore operations in Western Australia.  This was the biggest ever proposed deal involving an Australian company.
• Acted on a range of capital raisings (including, the various CBA ‘PERLS’ securities) and issues of hybrid securities and convertible bonds (including issues by Paladin, FKP, Colonial and AGL).
• Acted for Charter Hall on its acquisition of the majority of Macquarie Group Limited’s core real estate management platform.
• Acted for St. George Bank on its scrip based merger with Westpac.
• Advised Commonwealth Bank of Australia on the acquisition of Bankwest from HBOS.
• Advised Cadbury Schweppes on the sale of Australian beverages business to Asahi.
• Advised French pharmaceutical conglomerate Sanofi-Aventis on the acquisition of Symbion Consumer Group.
• Advised REAL I.S. AG (Germany) on Australian cross-border deal for the  purchase of the A-grade historic office building known as the Edmund Barton Building.
• Advised each of Macquarie Group and the Suncorp Group on their Non-operating Holding Company (NOHC) restructures.