1 October 2009

Mallesons Stephen Jaques has advised J.P. Morgan and RBS Morgans on Campbell Brothers’ capital raising announced today.

Campbell Brothers aims to raise up to A$196.6 million through a fully underwritten 1-for-6 rights issue. According to lead Mallesons Partner, Shannon Finch, the structure of the raising is unusual in the current market.

“The capital raising is a non-accelerated renounceable structure, under which rights can be traded on the ASX. The trend in recent years has been to use an accelerated timetable, and renounceable structures have tended to involve institutional bookbuilds to sell rights of shareholders that do not participate. This rights issue represents a return to a more traditional offer structure, although it still makes use of the new undocumented rights issue format,” Ms Finch said.

“The other interesting aspect of this announcement is that the Company has indicated that the capital raising is being conducted to provide funding flexibility to pursue strategic opportunities, including the takeover bid announced by the Company this morning for PearlStreet. It’s a welcome sign of some activity in the M&A space,” she added.

The proposed bid comes just two days after the takeover target, PearlStreet, announced an A$23 million recapitalisation proposal with Catalyst Private Equity.

The Mallesons team advised the underwriters on all legal aspects of the rights issue. The team included Ada Ko and Jessica Hudson.

More information:

Aleks Czerwinski, Communications Consultant

+612 9296 3703 or +411 350 611.

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