Nicola Wakefield Evans is a Partner of King & Wood Mallesons in the Sydney office. She specialises in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, projects, infrastructure and corporate governance. Nicola is also a non-executive director of Toll Holdings Limited, Australia's largest transport and logistics company.
Nicola has recently returned to Sydney after spending 4 years in the firm's Hong Kong office where she was the firm's Managing Partner International. She also acted for major Australian, Chinese, Asian and international corporations and investment banks in Hong Kong including UC Rusal, BHP Billiton, Macquarie Bank, AMP, GE, Morgan Stanley, Fushan, APAC and a number of PRC companies, Nicola has also held a number of client relationship partner roles for the firm's key clients.
Nicola has been involved in significant transactions in the energy and resources, financial services, airports, private equity, media, technology and communications sectors. She has experience negotiating and documenting corporate transactions including company and business transactions, joint ventures and restructurings, capital raisings and takeovers in Australia and Asia.
A key member of the firm's corporate governance group, Nicola has experience in providing strategic advice to company boards on the conduct of meetings, director and senior executive remuneration, directors indemnities, board composition and compliance. She has written papers and given seminars on corporate governance, directors' duties and directors' duties during insolvency and takeovers, on corporate issues in the energy and resources industry and capital markets.
Nicola co-authored an article published by the International Bar Association (IBA) corporate and M&A Law Committee 2009 - Australia: Squeeze-Out Guide.
Nicola is rated by a number of publications as one of the Asian region's leading M&A, corporate governance/commercial, media and resources & energy lawyers. She was nominated as a leading lawyer in Corporate Governance in the 2009 edition of Legal Media Group 's Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers, IFLR's Guide to the World's Leading Corporate Governance Lawyers 2009 for Hong Kong and Chambers 2012 where she was recommended for her broad range of experience, which included energy and natural resources, projects, capital markets and general corporate matters. She has acted for a number of major Australia, Chinese and other Asian Clients, having until recently been based in Mallesons' Hong Kong office.
Nicola is praised by Australasian Legal Business (ALB) as "among the best of the best from Australia". In 2009, she was recognised in ALB's Hot 100 for the Asia Region: "In an industry where glass ceilings are conspicuous, Wakefield Evans can be widely commended for being among a rare few to have broken through it. Wakefield Evans has also built the profile of the Australian-based firm to a level where it is rivalling US and UK firms, for a share of the most lucrative Chinese-related work". In February 2011, Nicola was selected as one of the Advance Global 50, which is a group of leading Australian women who work outside Australia.
In October 2012 Nicola was included in the Australian Financial Review and Westpac Group's inaugural list of 'Australia's 100 Women of Influence'