Qualifications
BCom, LLB (Hons), University of Auckland
Admitted
1998, New Zealand
As the head of our national Tax practice, Bevan advises on a wide range of tax matters including restructurings, international transactions, transfer pricing, significant mergers and acquisitions, financing and capital raisings, tax disputes, and tax risk management.
Bevan regularly assists clients to obtain binding rulings and advance pricing agreements for complex commercial, funding, and cross-border related party transactions. He also has extensive financial services experience and regularly advises on the tax rules applicable to banking, insurance, and investments and funds management, including the portfolio investment entity (PIE) rules.
Prior to joining Chapman Tripp, Bevan was with ASB Bank where he had overall responsibility for the tax affairs of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's New Zealand group, including ASB and Sovereign Life Assurance. This, combined with his private practice experience, means Bevan is uniquely placed to understand clients' tax requirements.
Bevan is recognised as a Highly Regarded Practitioner by ITR World Tax and a Leading Lawyer by Chambers Asia Pacific.
Recent highlights
- Advising the independent directors of the manager of NZX-listed Vital Healthcare Property Trust on the $214m internalisation of Vital’s management rights.
- Advising Challenger on its acquisitions of Bluestone Mortgages NZ's ~$600m residential mortgage portfolio (including establishing Challenger Mortgage Management and a new securitisation trust) and Spark's $240m handset receivables portfolio, including securitisation structuring and NZ/Australia tax issues.
- Advising Bank of New Zealand on its double fintech acquisition of BlinkPay and Centrapay.
- Advising multinational groups on a range of complex, and in some cases novel, New Zealand tax issues arising from cross-border arrangements, including permanent establishment, transfer pricing (including advance pricing agreements applications), Withholding Tax and Goods and Services Tax implications.
- Advising Pepper New Zealand Limited on all tax aspects of its acquisition and securitisation funding of HSBC’s $1.4b New Zealand home loan business.
- Advising New Ground Capital Limited on the design and establishment of a housing fund, set up to address housing shortages, including tax advice on design of the fund and application of New Zealand’s tax rules to investment funds.
- Advising Vector Limited on the tax aspects of material transactions including the sale of Vector OnGas, and its 60.25% shareholding in Liquigas Limited, and the sale of 50% of its Vector Metering, delivering $1.7b in gross proceeds.
Affiliations
- Co-chair of the Financial Services Council Tax committee.
- Member of the International Fiscal Association New Zealand committee.
- Member of the Institute of Directors.
- Regular presenter at domestic and global tax conferences.
- Previous Chair of the New Zealand Bankers’ Association Tax Working Group.
