Baker McKenzie acted as Australian and U.S. legal counsel to Macquarie Capital (Australia) Limited and J.P. Morgan Australia Limited, as joint lead managers of a fully underwritten A$100 million institutional placement and subsequent share purchase plan by Steadfast Group Limited. The proceeds from the capital raising will be used by Steadfast Group to fund its A$95 million acquisition of Whitbread Insurance Group and provide funds for future growth.

Baker McKenzie, Head of Capital Markets, Craig Andrade stated:

We were delighted to act as both Australian and U.S. counsel for our clients Macquarie Capital and J.P. Morgan. This was a great outcome for the Steadfast Group."
Craig led the deal alongside Baker McKenzie partners, Andrew Reilly and Antony Rumboll, and was assisted by Baker McKenzie lawyers Paul Anderson and Matthew De Cataldo.

Steadfast is the largest general insurance broker network in Australasia with growing operations in Asia and Europe. The network comprises of over 360 brokerages with over 1,300 offices across metropolitan and regional areas of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Baker McKenzie has recently acted on a number of large, complex equity capital markets transactions including: acting as Australian and US counsel to Morgan Stanley in connection with its role as sole underwriter of a $450 million equity placement by IOOF to fund its acquisition of ANZ's OnePath pensions and investments business and four aligned dealer groups for $975 million; acting for Pyrolyx AG on its IPO of Chess Depository Interests (CDIs) and listing on ASX - Pyrolyx is the first German company to list on the ASX (A$100m+ market cap); and acting for the JLMs in connection with Link Group's A$883 million entitlement offer to fund its $1.5 billion acquisition of Capita Asset Services.