Profile of Chelsey Drake

Chelsey Drake

Partner

About Chelsey Drake

Chelsey is a senior corporate partner at Allens. Chelsey regularly works with her clients on both public and private M&A transactions, as well as capital raising transactions and important governance issues. Chelsey has been a member of the Australian Government’s Takeovers Panel since 2016.

She is a trusted adviser to many listed companies including Aurelia Metals (ASX:AMI), Central Petroleum (ASX:CTP), Corporate Travel Management (ASX:CTD), EROAD (ASX: ERD), G8 Education (ASX:GEM), Michael Hill International (ASX: MHI), National Storage REIT (ASX: NSR) and Novonix (ASX: NVX). Her clients also include sophisticated professional investors and fund managers like QIC and HMC Capital.

Chelsey's transaction experience includes advising:

Private M&A
  • QIC: on the sale of the Queensland Motorways' toll road portfolio to Transurban; on the acquisition of the Sea Swift integrated marine, transport and logistics business from a group of shareholders including CHAMP Ventures and Toll Holdings; on the acquisition the Moomba to Adelaide Pipeline System from APA Group and on the grant of a concession to operate the Queensland Titles land registry business from the Queensland Government.
  • HMC Capital: on the first seed investment for its new energy transition platform, a strategic investment in specialist developer, owner and operator of utility-scale battery energy storage systems Stor-Energy.
  • Michael Hill International: on the acquisition of the Bevilles jewellery business, which operates a network of 26 stores across Victoria, New South Wales and South Autstralia, from the Bevilles family.
Public M&A
  • QIC: on its first public company takeover transaction, the acquisition of ASX listed distributed generation business Pacific Energy by way of scheme of arrangement.
  • National Storage REIT: in relation to the non-binding indicative offers to acquire National Storage received from Gaw Capital, Warburg Pincus and Public Storage.
  • Shell: on the establishment of an LNG joint venture with PetroChina and on that joint venture's A$3.4 billion takeover of Arrow Energy by way of scheme of arrangement.
Capital markets
  • Corporate Travel Management: on an AU$375 million underwritten accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer.
  • G8 Education: on an AU$301 million underwritten placement and accelerated renounceable entitlement offer.
  • Aurelia Metals: on an AU$130 million underwritten placement and accelerated entitlement offer.