James has 14 years of experience as a corporate lawyer, with a practice focused on mergers & acquisitions, corporate advisory, venture capital and start-up capital raising.
James acts for buyers and sellers in share sales, asset sales, equity investments and venture capital transactions. His clients include private and public companies, venture capital funds, startups, investors, family-owned businesses, government departments and SMEs.
James regularly works with technology businesses but has experience across a wide range of industries including food & beverage, agriculture, financial services, manufacturing and retail.
In acting on mergers & acquisitions and other corporate transactions, James is able to draw on his breadth of experience, which includes acting on a range of commercial matters for clients like Note Printing Australia and acting as trusted adviser to many founders and entrepreneurs in his role as co-lead of the firm’s Venture Capital & Startups Group. James also co-leads the firm’s ‘Frank Lab’ start-up accelerator program.
James has experience working in the US, having undertaken a secondment with New York based law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, where he acted on a number of large debt and equity transactions.
- Advised Australian financial advisory business Wealth Architects on the acquisition of a majority stake by The Envest Group in Wealth Architects.
- Advising enterprise architecture company Avolution on its transaction with Australian private equity firm Whiteoak’s new $200 million Fund II investment vehicle.
- Advising Breakthrough Victoria, the Victorian Government’s $2b investment fund, on 15 venture capital investments across a range of industries.
- Advising the founders of Liberty Oil on the sale of its wholesale fuel business to Viva Energy Australia and the establishment of a new retail fuel joint venture with Viva.
- Advising Invest Victoria on a range of venture capital investments as part of its Equity Investment Attraction Fund.
- Advising the owners of Casacir on the sale of its quarry business and sites to a controlled entity of ASX-listed Maas Group Holdings Limited in a deal worth approximately $70 million
- Advising myprosperity on its $40m sale to HUB24 (ASX: HUB), a listed wealth industry provider and supplier of the HUB24 platform
- Advised Lumi Interactive, an Australian female-founded team of game developers, on its US$6.75 million (approximately A$9.76 million) series seed priced equity capital raise round.
- Acting for Deluxe Corporation, a US-based payments and business technology company listed on the NYSE, on the divestiture of its Australian web hosting business to Newfold Digital for approximately $30 million.
- Acting for the shareholders of DGIT Systems on their sale of the business to CSG International, a global business support systems provider.
- Acting for Maggie Beer Holdings (ASX: MBH) on its $50m acquisition of e-commerce company Hampers & Gifts Australia and the associated placement and underwritten accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer to raise $30m.
- Advised leading essential oil supplier Australian Botanical Products on its acquisition by IXOM, a multinational water treatment and chemical distribution company.
- Acting for Fluence Corporation Limited on its $75 million acquisition of a large privately held US company with a global business in the wastewater treatment industry.
- Acting for the Australian distributor of Sonos products in the sale of its shares to US company, Sonos, Inc.
- Advising Note Printing Australia on a number of local and international supply arrangements.
- Acting on the restructure of Australia’s largest privately-owned construction company.