Kate Naude Special Counsel

Kate is a corporate lawyer specialising in equity capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and venture capital.

She has extensive experience in ECM transactions including IPOs, rights issues, placements and share purchase plans. She also specialises in public and private M&A transactions such as takeover bids, schemes of arrangement and private treaty transactions.

Kate acts for ASX-listed companies in relation to their corporate transactions and has experience across a range of industries, with a focus on the health and technology sectors. She also acts for private equity and venture capital firms in relation to their Australian investments. She has previously worked for major Australian banks in their in-house legal teams.

Experience

Capital markets

Bionomics Limited (NASDAQ:BNOX, OTCQB:BNOEF)

Advised on its 2024 Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) (2024).

Novo Resources Corp. (ASX: NVO, TSX: NVO, OTCQX: NSRPF)

Advised on its successful IPO and listing of its CDIs on the ASX in 2023.

CurveBeam AI Limited (ASX:CVB)

Advised on its 2023 initial public offering and listing on the ASX.

EBR Systems Inc. (ASX:EBR)

Advised on its 2021 A$110 million IPO and ASX listing.

Cooper Energy Limited (ASX:COE)

Advised on its institutional placement and accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer which raised A$244m in 2022.

ImpediMed Limited (ASX:IPD)

Advised on its placement and share purchase plan which raised A$42.5 million and its institutional and retail entitlement offer to raise up to A$24.9 million (2020).

Osprey Medical Inc (ASX:OSP)

Advised on its renounceable entitlement offer to raise up to A$15.5 million (2020).

Visioneering Technologies, Inc. (ASX: VTI)

Advised on its non-renounceable entitlement offer and director placement in 2023.

Venture capital

Insight Partners

Advised on its A$223 million investment in software start-up Octopus Deploy (2021).

Insight Partners

Advised on its A$14m investment in software start-up Devicie (2022).

CEFC / Virescent Ventures Pty Ltd

Advised on its investment in clean energy start-up, H2Lab (2023).

CEFC

Advised on its participation in the Series B and Series C Capital Raisings in Sunman Energy (2020, 2023)

Protecht Group Holdings

Advised Protecht in relation to the A$42 million investment by Arrowroot Capital (2022).

Orbx Limited

Advised on its pre-IPO funding round and proposed IPO (2020).

Curvebeam AI Limited

Advised on its 2022 pre-IPO funding rounds.

Westpac Banking Corporation

Strategic Investments and M&A Legal team. Advised on various potential disposals for the business bank, initial and follow on investments in various fintechs and assisted with the establishment of the Business Growth Fund, a joint initiative between the Federal Government, the four major banks, Macquarie and HSBC.

M&A

Potentia Capital

Advised on the $600m contested takeover bid for Nitro Software (ASX:NTO) (2023).

Potentia Capital

Advised on the bid for Tyro Payments Limited (ASX:TYR), a listed payments provider of merchant credit, debit and EFTPOS services (2023).

Accel-KKR

Acted for HumanForce, an Accel-KKR portfolio company, on its acquisition of IntelliHR Limited (ASX:IHR) by way of scheme of arrangement and subsequently by way of a concurrent on-market contested takeover bid (2023).

Qantas Airways Limited

Acted for Qantas Airways Limited (ASX:QAN) in its proposed merger with Alliance Services Limited (ASX:AQZ) by way of a scheme of arrangement (2022/2023).

Fireblocks

Acted for Fireblocks on the acquisition of BlockFold, a Melbourne-based blockchain start-up (2023).

Middle East Sovereign Wealth Fund

Advised in relation to the establishment of a A$1 billion Australian industrial / logistics real estate platform.

Curvebeam AI Limited

Advised Curvebeam AI Limited on its merger with Curvebeam, LLC (2022).

Accel-KKR

Advised on its acquisition of Marvel Internet Group Pty Ltd (2020).

Eleanor Group

Advised on its acquisition of Hunter Valley Zoo.

Aspire42

Advised on its acquisition of Radio Rentals (South Australia).

Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX:WBC)

Advised on the sale of Westpac’s vendor financing business to Cerberus Capital Management for A$600 million (2019).

Career & qualifications

Qualifications

  • Graduate Diploma of Applied Corporate Governance, Governance Institute
  • Bachelor of Laws (Hons), University of Western Australia
  • Bachelor of Economics, University of Western Australia

Memberships

  • Law Society of New South Wales

Insights Read more insight

Following Silicon Valley’s lead? Reforming non-compete arrangements in Australian PE/VC deals

As Australia debates reforms to non-compete clauses, the implications for venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms are significant, particularly regarding business sales and funding...

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Still call Australia home? Achieving an outbound redomicile

Many growth-stage companies – particularly in the technology and resources sectors – have contemplated changing their jurisdiction of incorporation from Australia to elsewhere.

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ASX insights: navigating the evolving IPO landscape in 2024

The ASX is likely to introduce a series of new measures in 2024 aimed at streamlining aspects of the IPO listing process, as outlined in a recent adviser briefing.

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News

Internal publications

  • JWS Australian IPO guide for US issuers
  • JWS Australian IPO guide