Chapman Tripp is stoked and stunned to have won New Zealand Law Firm of the Year for the sixth consecutive year in the KangaNews Awards for the Australian and New Zealand debt markets.
The winners are decided purely on the votes of market participants. KangaNews does not employ an awards committee or ask for awards pitches. Instead, it conducts thorough and intensive polling of those involved in the market.
Chapman Tripp Chief Executive Partner Pip England (pictured) said, “We are both grateful and humbled that the market should show such continuing confidence in our expertise in this area.”
Chapman Tripp also advised on three of the six New Zealand deals to be awarded.
Luke Ford assisted on the Rates Bond Deal of the Year, New Zealand Debt Management’s offer of NZ$3b 30-year nominal bonds. He also assisted Kāinga Ora on the Sustainability Deal of the Year (with Kāinga Ora also taking home New Zealand Issuer of the Year).
Gerard Souness and Jana Hitchcock advised Westpac New Zealand as arranger on UDC Finance’s NZ$400m Auto ABS Trust, winner of the Securitisation Deal of the year and the largest ever New Zealand ABS transaction.
It has been a significant year for the finance team, in terms of both sheer volume and quality of transactions. These include:
· another raft of market-leading sustainability bond issuances, with Christchurch City Holdings’ ground-breaking sustainability bond (the first to successfully obtain a specific FMA offer exemption), the first offshore green bond by a New Zealand corporate (Mercury’s A$200m Australian bond issue), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank’s sustainable development Kauri bond and Precinct Properties first green bond.
· Arvida’s first NZX-listed bond, repeat offers for Transpower, T R Group and Wellington Airport (the first fixed rate re-setting bond since 2019) and a range of other wholesale issues, bank issues and Kauri bonds, and
· Arranger, issuer or trustee advisor roles on 8 of the 10 New Zealand securitisation market issuances in 2021 – over NZ$1.95b in total.
