About Richard Kriedemann
Richard is one of Australia's most highly regarded M&A and Corporate lawyers. He is consistently ranked in Chambers Asia-Pacific, Chambers Global and Legal 500 as a stand out in his field. Clients describe him as 'quick to identify problems and to make practical suggestions to overcome them.' (Chambers Asia-Pacific 2019).
Richard practices principally in mergers and acquisitions, particularly public company takeovers and schemes of arrangement. He also advises on restructuring of listed companies, business and share acquisitions and disposals, joint ventures and capital raising and corporate governance.
Richard's experience includes advising:
- Oil Search – on the defence of the merger proposal from Santos.
- TA Associates – on the acquisition of interests in BetaShares.
- Hempel – on the acquisition of Wattyl paints.
- Nutrien – on its $470m scheme of arrangement to acquire Ruralco.
- Rio Tinto – on:
- the scheme of arrangement to privatise Coal & Allied Industries;
- USD2.45 billion sale of Coal & Allied Industries to Yancoal;
- the 2017 and 2018 off market buy back programs totalling USD5.7billion;
- disposal of its controlling interest in Bougainville Copper;
- sale of the Northparkes copper mine;
- strategic review of Pacific Aluminium;
defence of the takeover proposal from BHP Billiton; - proposed strategic alliance with Chinalco;
- sale of its holding in Lihir Gold; and
- the recapitalisation of Energy Resources of Australia.
- Cheung Kong Infrastructure – on its proposed $13 billion scheme of arrangement to acquire APA Group.
- Oil Search – on the $21 billion merger proposal from Santos, on its $1.1 billion capital raising, on its proposal to acquire InterOil and sell down to Total, and on its defence of the A$11.6 billion merger proposal from Woodside.
- Ferrovial – on its $813 million hostile takeover of Broadspectrum.
- Newcrest Mining – on it’s a$9.5 billion merger with Lihir Gold, sale of its interest in Evolution Mining and investment in SolGold plc.
- Just Eat – on its acquisition of Menulog.
- JBS – on its acquisition of Primo Smallgoods.
- Telecom New Zealand – on its demerger of Chorus.
- Speedcast – on its $300m rights issue to acquire Harris CapRock.
- Kina Securities – on the acquisition of the PNG business of Maybank and initial public offering of the combined entity.
Richard is a member of the Corporations Committee of the Law Council of Australia, and an adjunct faculty member of the University of Sydney lecturing in the masters course on takeovers and reconstructions.