Mallesons Stephen Jaques advised Tasmania based freight business, the Chas Kelly Transport Group, on its acquisition of the Patrick Bass Straight Shipping and Tasmanian Freight Forwarding businesses from the Toll group. The new operation is known as Searoad Shipping and Searoad Logistics.

The businesses were divested by Toll in accordance with undertakings given by Toll to the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission), as part of its acquisition of Patrick Corporation Limited. Chas Kelly, a freight business based in Tasmania, assembled the consortium to bid for the businesses.

The Mallesons team included lawyers from our Melbourne and Sydney offices with expertise in mergers and acquisitions, competition, tax and property.

The complex acquisition documents were negotiated and signed in one week. The bidding process was highly competitive and the speed with which our team prepared the documents and our understanding of the transport industry contributed to the consortium’s successful winning bid.

Partner Alison Lansley and senior associate Julian Hoskins led the Mallesons team. They were supported by Sean Selleck, Michael Chaaya, Nathaniel Popelianski, Susie Grehl, Fiona Jamieson and James Katsikas.

Alison Lansley commented: “Our lawyers were brought into this transaction on very short notice. We were able to achieve a commercially favourable outcome for Chas Kelly by drawing on our expertise and resources to negotiate, draft and sign the documents quickly and efficiently.”