Gerard Souness

Gerard leads Chapman Tripp’s finance team and is an expert in corporate and institutional finance.

Gerard advises financial institutions and borrowers on a wide range of transactional and corporate finance products, with particular expertise in general and margin lending, as well as syndicated, leveraged, project, and acquisition financing transactions. His experience also includes advising on securitisation and warehouse funding programmes, project finance, international trade facilities and instruments, and the development and documentation of transactional banking products.

Gerard’s experience in private practice at Chapman Tripp and Linklaters, and in-house at a major New Zealand bank, gives him a strong understanding of clients’ financing requirements across the banking product spectrum.

He is recognised as a Leading Lawyer by Chambers Asia Pacific, a Notable Practitioner by IFLR1000, and as a Next Generation Partner by Legal 500 Asia Pacific.

Recent highlights

• Advising international and domestic lenders providing core funding to Fletcher Building, Infratil, Mainfreight, Auckland University, Morrison, Sky Network Television, Vulcan Steel, Freightways, SkyCity, Seeka Group, Zespri, Profile Group, Goodman Property Trust, The Warehouse, EnviroNZ, Steel & Tube, and Restaurant Brands.
• Assisting InfraRed Capital Partners and Northleaf Capital on their acquisition of, and $1.3b syndicated acquisition funding for, 80% of Vodafone NZ’s passive mobile tower business.
• Advising Ontario Teachers Pension Plan on its 16-bank syndicate funding, including the primary syndication process, for the acquisition of Awanui (formerly Labtests) and certain other acquisition financings.
• Assisting BNZ, ANZ, and Société Générale as arrangers and joint lead managers on the $650m public term securitisation for UDC Finance, the largest term securitisation transaction in New Zealand to date. Chapman Tripp has advised the joint lead managers on UDC’s public term deals every year since its inaugural issue in 2021.
• Advising arrangers and primary syndicate lenders on pre-committed acquisition backstop facilities and primary syndication take-out mechanics for Infratil’s $1.8b acquisition of the remaining Vodafone shares.
• Assisting four banks and the independent security trustee, New Zealand Guardian Trust, in providing approximately $600m in syndicated project financing to Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira for the purchase of more than 40 school properties from the Crown as part of its Treaty settlement.

Affiliations

• Member of the Asia Pacific Loan Markets Association - New Zealand Committee.
• Member of the Australian Securitisation Forum - New Zealand Market Subcommittee.