Costas Condoleon

Partner
Sydney

Biography

Costas co-leads our Corporate Advisory group and is a member of our board.

Costas is widely recognised as one of Australia's leading strategic M&A and securities lawyers and has advised on some of Australia’s most prominent, novel and complex deals. He is one of only a small group of lawyers ranked Band 1 in M&A by Chambers in Australia.

Costas frequently acts for both bidders and targets in takeovers (friendly and unsolicited) and other control transactions, and his significant experience also extends to private M&A, corporate and securities law, capital markets and directors’ duties.

He is a member of the Australian Government's Takeovers Panel, Australia’s primary forum for resolving takeover disputes, an adjunct member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney where he lectures on Schemes of Arrangements and the Takeovers Panel in the Masters of Laws course of Takeovers and Reconstructions and is a member of the Corporations Committee of the Law Council of Australia.

Experience

Costas’ experience includes advising:

  • Ingenia Communities Group on its proposed $1.2 billion scrip and cash acquisition of Peet Limited by scheme of arrangement, and on its response to the unsolicited $2.16 billion proposal from Warburg Pincus and the unsolicited $2.2 billion proposal from AVID Property Group.
  • Macquarie Asset Management led consortium on its $11.7 billion acquisition of Qube Holdings Limited by scheme of arrangement.
  • SG Fleet on its $1.4 billion public to private by Pacific Equity Partners by scheme of arrangement and Pacific Equity Partners and SG Fleet on its proposed $1.13 billion acquisition of FleetPartners Group Limited by scheme of arrangement following a competitive bid process.
  • Yancoal Australia on its acquisition of an 80% interest in the Kestrel coal mine for up to USD2.4 billion from EMR Capital and Adaro Capital.
  • Arrovest on its proposed $737 million acquisition of Noumi Limited by scheme of arrangement.
  • Domain Holdings Australia on CoStar Group’s $2.65 billion unsolicited take private by scheme of arrangement.
  • Pacific Equity Partners on its proposed $1.3 billion acquisition of Johns Lyng Group via a scheme of arrangement.
  • James Hardie on its $14 billion merger with AZEK Corporation by way of a cash and stock merger.
  • Sigma Healthcare on its $35 billion reverse takeover and ASX listing of Chemist Warehouse.
  • Vocus on its $5.25 billion acquisition of TPG Telecom’s Enterprise, Government and Wholesale fixed business and fibre network assets.
  • Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking on its $1.2 billion acquisition of Link Group by scheme of arrangement.
  • Industry Super Property Trust (ISPT) on its merger with IFM investors by scheme of arrangement to form an investment manager with $240 billion in funds under management.
  • QANTM Intellectual Property Limited on its $260 million take private by funds managed and advised by Adamantem Capital by scheme of arrangement.
  • Orica on its fully underwritten $400 million placement and share purchase plan.
  • APA Group on its $773 million acquisition of the Basslink interconnector pipeline, by acquiring the Basslink group’s secured bank debt and subsequently the Basslink group from the appointed administrators and receivers.
  • Macquarie Asset Management and its co-investors on the $3.58 billion sale of Axicom.
  • CIMIC on its response to HOCHTIEF Australia’s unsolicited takeover bid valuing CIMIC at $6.85 billion.
  • Virtus Health on its response to the extensive and hard fought contest for control labelled “the M&A battle of the year” by the Australian Financial Review involving a proposed scheme of arrangement and simultaneous takeover bid by CapVest, and unsolicited but ultimately recommended takeover bid by BGH Capital, and associated Takeovers Panel proceedings.
  • Yancoal Australia on its response to the unsolicited take private proposal from Yankuang Energy valuing Yancoal at $7 billion.

Awards and Recognition

  • Chambers Asia-Pacific 2026

    Ranked Band 1 in Corporate/M&A

  • Chambers Global 2026

    Ranked Band 1 in Corporate/M&A

  • The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2026

    Recognised in the Hall of Fame in Corporate and M&A

  • IFLR1000 Asia-Pacific 2025

    Highly Regarded in Capital Markets: Equity and M&A

  • The Best Lawyers in Australia 2027

    Recognised for Commercial Law, Corporate/Governance Practice, Corporate Law, Equity Capital Markets Law, Mergers and Acquisitions Law, Private Equity Law and Telecommunications Law

Testimonials

Client first thinking

A truly exceptional corporate lawyer who ensures that his clients strategically important and high-value transactions are in the right hands.

Chambers Asia-Pacific

An excellent practitioner and a good person who possesses incredible experience, sound judgement, responsiveness, commercial awareness, and ability to communicate and explain complex issues to the board and management.

Chambers Asia-Pacific

Extremely good to deal with. Always has sound responses, is pragmatic, low on ego, commercial and easy to talk with.

The Legal 500 Asia-Pacific 2024

Chambers Global says peers note the strong technical skills of Costas who is a 'responsive and skilled M&A practitioner with strong technical skills and excellent commercial judgement', and that Costas has 'an amazing legal mind, providing an outstanding mix of technical skill and commercial judgement'.

Chambers Global

He is an exceptional operator. He is brilliant at distilling and explaining complex legal scenarios for board members and executives. He is highly commercial, pragmatic and possesses deep technical skills.

IFLR1000
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