Media Release: Clayton Utz congratulates Newcastle Permanent on green light for $19.5 billion Greater Bank merger
Clayton Utz was privileged to be chosen to advise Australian-owned community bank Newcastle Permanent, whose members agreed to merge with fellow customer-owned mutual, Greater Bank – a $19.5 billion deal that will create Australia’s largest owned community bank with around 600,000 customers.
Corporate / M&A partner Stephanie Daveson led our cross-practice team, core members of which included: special counsel Andrew Mackenzie and senior associate Lisa Tolhurst (Corporate), partner Christy Miller and senior associate Brett Thompson (Workplace Relations, Employment & Safety), partner Brendon Lamers and director Alex Lebsanft (Tax), special counsel Craig Hine (Regulatory and compliance), partner Cameron Gascoyne (Intellectual Property & Technology) and partner Kirsten Webb, senior associate Doug Thompson and lawyer Lindsay Norton (Competition).
Newcastle Permanent and Greater Bank are both based in NSW’s Hunter region. The merger was announced on 3 August last year and is expected to take effect on 1 March 2023, subject to final regulatory approvals.
Commenting on our involvement, Stephanie said:
We are excited to have assisted Newcastle Permanent structure the transaction in an innovative way not used before in mergers of this type and navigate the regulatory approvals associated with this.