King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) acted for Greg O’Neill and related parties on the sale of an 80% stake in the privately-owned La Trobe Financial Group to New York-based Blackstone.

La Trobe Financial manages investment mandates in excess of A$13 billion, including a retail Credit Fund of almost $2 billion and over $1 billion of public RMBS bonds issued. The Melbourne-based firm has over 200 staff with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Partner Peter Stirling led the team advising Greg O’Neill, who will retain 20% ownership of La Trobe and continue in his role as Chief Executive Officer while the existing management and executive team also remain unchanged.

Commenting on the transaction, Peter Stirling said; “We are delighted to have worked with Greg O’Neil and the La Trobe Financial team on this transaction. La Trobe Financial is one of Australia’s largest non-bank lenders, and the partnership with Blackstone will continue to build on the firm’s strong capital position, expand its networks and draw on global best practice.”

The matter represents the latest in a series of significant M&A transactions on which the Melbourne KWM team has acted over the past several months. In addition to the La Trobe transaction, the Melbourne KWM team has acted on the sale of Australian Unity’s corporate health insurance business to NIB, on the Caterpillar Group’s acquisition of the Downer EDI  freight rail maintenance business, on the sale by Engie and Mitsui  of the Loy Yang B Power Station (and related assets) to Alinta Energy and on Transurban’s $1.9 billion equity capital raising in relation to the West Gate Tunnel Project, the largest secondary capital raising in 2017.