Successfully obtaining no action result from ACCC

Mubadala Capital is an alternative asset management subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, a state-owned global investment firm for a sovereign wealth fund of the Abu Dhabi government. Mubadala Capital undertook an acquisition of CI Financial, a Canadian investment management company. The acquisition included assets located in Australia.

To complete the acquisition in relation to the Australian assets, Piper Alderman supported the required Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) authorisation and liaised with the ACCC.

This involved advising and assisting in relation to preparing an initial communication to the ACCC (as well as liaising with Australian FIRB counsel) outlining the details of the acquisition. We also provided additional advice in relation to responding to requests for information from the ACCC, including seeking clarifications/amendments to those requests where they were excessive or unclear.

Given the significant size of the transaction and the nature of the investments in Australia by CI Financial, it was difficult to identify the relevant Australian interests and activities that were to be disclosed to the ACCC.

In addition, the transaction largely involved acquisition of overseas assets. As a result, the additional queries raised by the ACCC were, at times, not directly applicable to the transaction. This required further explanation to the ACCC to clarify the their requests for information and to ensure Mubadala Capital could appropriately respond.

Piper Alderman assisted Mubadala Capital with successfully obtaining a no action result from the ACCC as part of Mubadala Capital’s acquisition of CI Financial. This means informal merger clearance was obtained from the ACCC, clearing the transaction from a competition law point of view.