Nigel Lake

Nigel is Joint CEO and founder of Pottinger.

Nigel is one of the most experienced bankers in the Asia Pacific region, with well over twenty years' advisory experience. He has advised on leading assignments in most of the world's major economies, including acquisitions, joint ventures, mergers and disposals, hostile bids and defences, MBOs and other leveraged transactions and IPOs. Nigel's personal transaction experience amounts to some 100 transactions with a combined value of well over A$200 billion. In addition, he has wide-ranging expertise in corporate and capital restructuring, balance sheet management and capital optimisation. More broadly, Nigel has assisted numerous major companies with the development and implementation of corporate strategy. Nigel is a core member of the Pottinger team recently appointed to the Federal Treasury financial advisory panel and the Victorian Treasury panel. He is also a respected commentator on corporate activity for programmes such as ABC Lateline and CNBC.

Examples of Nigel's recent experiences in the Australia/New Zealand markets include ground-breaking assignments in highly technical industry sectors including financial services, resources, technology, telecommunications, infrastructure, media and healthcare where clients particularly value his clear, practical and insightful advice:

Advising ING Group on the sale of its $34bn Australian investment management business, one of the largest such businesses in the Australia/New Zealand region
Advising the global publisher Pearson on its acquisition of the online businesses of REDGroup from the administrator
Providing strategic and capital advice to TransACT, one of Australia's larger fibre network operators
Advising on the formation of Queensland Urban Utilities via a $4.3bn five way merger, the largest ever water transaction, the largest transaction completed in Australia in 2009/10 and the second largest ever infrastructure transaction in Australian history
Advice on strategic and strategic fundraising options to Geodynamics, Australia's largest geothermal energy company
Providing strategic and transaction advice to CH2, Australia's largest pharmaceutical
RACQ's $235m acquisition of its joint venture partner's 50% share in RACQ Insurance, one of the largest motor insurers in Australia
The sale of LJ Hooker to a private equity consortium, in what was the largest LBO announced and closed in Australia in 2009
The proposed privatisation by way of mutualisation of GESB, the WA State superannuation administrator and manager
Suncorp's sale of its $230m credit card portfolio to Citigroup
Suncorp's sale of 50% of RAC Insurance to RAC WA
Suncorp's sale of a 50% stake in RACT to RACT Insurance, to form a 50:50 joint venture
Suncorp’s A$7.9bn merger with Promina, the largest ever completed general insurance transaction in Australian history, and CFO Magazine "deal of the year" in 2007

Reflecting Pottinger's commitment to provide advice across the whole strategic development cycle, Nigel's recent experience also includes strategic advisory assignments for a number of Australia's ASX 20 companies and other large businesses, including Australia Post, as well as a variety of confidential assignments in the utilities, resources, services, industrial, leisure, real estate and technology sectors.

Prior to founding Pottinger, Nigel was hired by HSBC to help build its global financial institutions advisory group. His experience in this role included assignments in the Americas, Europe and the Asia Pacific region, and included a period based in Tokyo. Examples of assignments include:

Advising Daiwa Bank on the acquisition of the failed Namihaya Bank, one of the largest such acquisitions in Japanese history
Advising Daiwa Bank on the proposed acquisition of Kofuku Bank
Advising Shinsei Bank (previously Long Term Credit Bank) on business expansion opportunities
Advising Suruga Bank, one of Japan's leading regional banks, on the proposed acquisition of Mycal Card
Advising Fukuoka Bank, another of Japan's leading regional banks, on proposed acquisitions
Advising the predecessor banks of Mizuho and other major Japanese banks on balance sheet restructuring in the face on ongoing weak equity and funding markets
Advising one of the world's larger financial services companies on market entry strategies for Japan
Advising the Irish Government of the £300m sale of ICC, the Irish Development Bank
Advised HSBC on its response to the hostile bids by BoS and RBS for NatWest and associated matters
Advised HSBC Group on its overall capital structure, culminating in substantial capital restructuring implemented in conjunction with the Euro10bn acquisition of CCF

Previously Nigel was an associate director at Barings, then the leading M&A advisory business in Europe, where he advised some of Europe's largest companies clients across a wide range of industries on transactions, including:

The acquisition by Lloyds TSB, then one of Europe's largest banks, on its £1.7bn acquisition of the minorities in its separately listed bancassurance business Lloyds Abbey Life, then one of the UK's largest life assurance/wealth management companies;
Advised ScottishPower, on its successful hostile bid for Southern Water
Advised ScottishPower, an integrated power company, on its successful hostile bid for Manweb, the first ever hostile bid for a UK utilities company
Advised Midlands Electricity, one of the UK's largest electricity distributors, on international renewable energy diversification strategy, including a series of acquisitions of mini-hydro electric power stations in Spain
A £3bn proposed merger between two of the UK's largest electricity distribution companies
Advised Aerospatiale and Dasa, two of Europe's largest defence organisations, on a proposed merger
Lloyds TSB's sale of International Factors, the UK's largest receivables finance business, to Bank of New York
The £1.7bn IPO of the venture capital firm 3i, the largest ever non-privatisation IPO in UK history at that time
Welcome's response to the £9bn hostile bid by Glaxo, still one of the largest ever completed hostile bids in UK history, and larger than any completed transaction in Australia to date
The sale by TBG, one of the largest privately owned industrial groups in Europe, of its submersible pumps business Hayward Tyler

Nigel commenced his career by qualifying as a chartered accountant with KPMG in London, where he specialised in financial sector companies, with clients including major financial institutions such as Citi, BNP, Rothschild, Nordbanken and Securum. His experience at KPMG included advising on the structure and implementation of the Nordbanken UK/Securum UK good bank/bad bank split in the UK, the first time such a structure had been implemented in the UK banking system.

Nigel graduated with a Masters degree from Cambridge University.