Sydney, 9 March 2009: Clayton Utz has received international recognition for its advisory role on the Macquarie SMART Series 2008-1E deal, which was announced Structured Finance and Securitisation Deal of the Year at the International Financial Review Awards (IFLR) Asia Awards 2009 held in Hong Kong on 4 March.
The deal team was also a finalist in the Structured Finance and Securitisation Team of the Year Award – the only Australian law firm nominee.
Sydney Structured Capital Markets partner Karolina Popic led the Clayton Utz team that advised Macquarie Leasing on the transaction, which closed in June 2008.
Other parties involved were Royal Bank of Scotland and JP Morgan as Joint Lead Managers, Perpetual as Trustee and Security Trustee, and Citibank as Euro Note Trustee and Paying Agents.
The deal involved the issue of nine tranches of notes denominated in either Australian dollars or Euro which were secured by the Trust's acquisition of commercial hire purchase agreements, finance leases, bills of sale and chattel mortgages originated by Macquarie Leasing Pty Limited. The aggregate of the Australian dollar notes was A$460 million and €455 million of Euro notes were issued. The deal involved issuing into both the Euro and Australian markets.
The two tranches of Euro Notes issued by the SMART transaction were then repackaged, with Clayton Utz acting for Macquarie Group Limited in advising and establishing their ARC Funding Programme pursuant to which that repackaging took place. This allowed Macquarie to tap into the Euro market and repackage securities issued by Australian issuers so they were repo-eligible with the European Central Bank (ECB).
This is one of a number of awards the SMART transaction has received in as many months. It was also awarded Asset Backed Securitisation (ABS) Deal of the Year at the recent INSTO Awards, which recognise the year's most excellent transactions in the banking and finance industry.
Commenting on this recognition, Karolina said: "This is pleasing acknowledgement for our Securitisation practice, which continues to advise on some of the most significant transactions taking place in the market."
The head of Clayton Utz' Banking and Financial Services practice, Grant Fuzi, said both the IFLR and INSTO Awards were deserving recognition for the team. "Great teams with great market reputations will continue to win great work," he said.