News | Gadens appoints leading counsel from ANZ as partner

Gadens has advised that it has appointed Vaughan Petherbridge as a partner in its Corporate Advisory Team. Vaughan specialises in corporate and commercial law, with an emphasis on mergers and acquisitions (including distressed M&A), early stage investing, joint ventures, complex business separations, and general corporate advisory work. 

Vaughan is a senior corporate lawyer with over 20 years of experience at top-tier law firms and in-house in Australia and New York. Vaughan joins Gadens from ANZ where he was a senior M&A counsel. Earlier in his career, he was a senior associate at a top tier law firm in New York where he advised on some of the largest bankruptcies and restructurings in U.S. history. Vaughan has also held in-house roles at National Australia Bank, General Motors and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“Vaughan’s experience has seen him working on both domestic and international transactions. His expertise, especially in early stage investing and complex business separations, will be of significant interest to our clients,” said Mark Pistilli, CEO.

“Gadens Corporate Team has been one of the fastest growing corporate advisory teams over the last five years, and we are delighted to appoint someone of Vaughan’s calibre as a partner. He will make an excellent addition to our team.”

Commenting on his appointment, Vaughan says:

“Gadens is a fantastic firm, and there are a number of factors that attracted me to Gadens. These include the friendly and collegiate culture of the firm and its excellent and long-standing brand. Gadens’ national reach and scale provides an excellent springboard for my practice.”

Vaughan has successfully led and closed numerous multi-million dollar domestic and cross-border transactions, including several early stage fintech and other investments for ANZ; all separation and transition aspects associated with the $825m sale of ANZ’s pensions and investments business to IOOF and the $2.85bn sale of ANZ’s life insurance business to Zurich; the divestment of ANZ’s 20% interest in Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank to COSCO and Baoshan for $1.8bn; GE’s acquisition of a 15% interest in China XD Electric Co. for US$535m; advising on the US$680m sale of HiT Entertainment to Mattel; and advising on the US$1.46bn sale of National Australia Bank’s interest in Great Western Bank.