Gilbert + Tobin has acted on Fletcher Building Ltd's (Fletchers) acquisition of Tasman Building Products Pty in a deal worth A$230m. The firm hopes this work will act as a spring board for further work in Australia.

M&A partner Gary Lawler spearheaded the deal and said: "Fletchers is growing its business out here [Australia] and we're hoping to grow with them". According to Lawler, Gilbert + Tobin currently completes roughly six deals of this complexity and size - in both the public and private sectors - per year.

Another deal in the pipeline is Investa Properties Ltd's bid for the Principal Office Fund. Lawler said: "We're just finishing off this deal, which is a A$1.8m takeover of a listed office property trust. Last week Investa gained control of the company, and it'll probably take a couple of months to mop it all up".
The firm worked closely with New Zealand law firm Bell Gully on today's deal, as it also did while working on Fletcher's purchase of Laminex Group - the building company's first major foray into Australia. The deal last year saw Fletchers pay A$67m for the Laminex board business to tap a residential market five times bigger than New Zealand's. After that purchase, about a third of Fletchers' sales were in Australia.

Fletcher share trading is halted today as the company prepared to sell as many as 25m new shares to part fund the acquisition. The shares placement is being underwritten by broker JBWere Ltd, with Deutsche Bank AG acting as its adviser on the acquisition.