Spotlight on Ratha Nabanidham – Good as gold in Brisbane
24 November 2025
Ahead of the Deal - Australian M&A Briefing
This month we're chatting with Ratha Nabanidham, who leads Ashurst's Brisbane Corporate Transactions team and advises on M&A transactions, joint ventures, capital raisings and corporate governance issues for clients across a wide range of sectors, including in particular the mining, energy and infrastructure sectors.
Q1: Ratha, you and Andrew Kim led the Ashurst team advising Harmony Gold on its A$1.58 billion acquisition of MAC Copper which completed last month. That was a complex and fascinating cross-jurisdictional deal – can you tell us a little more about it?
Ratha:
Yes, the Harmony Gold – MAC Copper transaction was certainly a unique one, involving a South African based and JSE-listed acquirer and a target that was incorporated in Jersey, listed on both ASX and the NYSE, with its sole asset (a copper mine) in Cobar, New South Wales. That meant coordinating across five jurisdictions, not only for the main transactional workstream but also due diligence and financing, calling on the expertise of our London and New York offices and also of counsel in South Africa and Jersey. All cross-border public M&A deals have their complexities, but this certainly had more than most!
For example, because MAC Copper is a Jersey company, the transaction was implemented by way of a Jersey law scheme of arrangement, which is obviously much less well trod ground than an acquisition scheme under Australian or English law. So navigating the Jersey scheme process – which was very familiar in some ways but different in others – while ensuring we also lined up with applicable listing rule requirements in South Africa, Australia and the US, was fascinating and meant that working effectively with our colleagues and local counsel in each jurisdiction was particularly crucial to getting the deal done.
It was a real pleasure to leverage Ashurst's global capabilities across our offices on three continents to help Harmony Gold to agree and complete this important transaction, which has given it immediate access to a significant and producing copper mine and is a major milestone in Harmony Gold's diversification strategy.
Q2: Switching focus to matters closer to home, what are you seeing driving activity and investment in Queensland at the moment – particularly in the mining and energy sectors?
Ratha:
One important recent development has been the release last month of the Queensland Energy Roadmap 2025, which heralds some significant changes to the Queensland Government's strategy regarding investment in energy and energy transition – as the Ashurst team has outlined.
For example, the previous government's policy was focused on taking 50% or greater equity stakes coupled with offtake arrangements, via Government Owned Corporations such as CS Energy, Stanwell and CleanCo, in renewable energy generation projects – and so we were very busy doing work to facilitate those projects and investments on both the private and public sector sides on, for example, the Wambo and Boulder Creek wind farms.
The new roadmap contemplates a greater role for the private sector in delivering new energy projects. To support this shift, a new 'Investor Gateway' that will be operated by QIC will provide a pathway for private capital to partner with the Government Owned Corporations to participate in new energy projects. This will be aided by a new $400 million Queensland Energy Investment Fund to be managed by QIC.
The roadmap also recognises that energy transition is a process and that there's necessarily still a role for coal and gas to meet current demand while the state's energy infrastructure continues to develop – and so provides some clarity and certainty that should support investment in those assets, including in particular a proposed additional 400 megawatts of new gas-fired generation capacity.
Of course the needs of the energy sector to meet both current demand and transition plans require significant inputs from the mining and resource extraction sectors – so we're seeing that at play in projects and deals relating to not only coal (although the current Queensland coal royalty regime continues to have an impact there) and gas for generation but also copper for connection and transmission.
Then of course there's other critical minerals that are needed to support the energy transition. There's a number of major critical minerals projects operational and under development in the state's north west, where there are significant deposits of vanadium which is used in large-scale battery technology.
Q3: Speaking of Queensland, Brisbane will be hosting the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Is there already a sense of excitement building as you look ahead to the Games?
Ratha:
There certainly is! Of course 2032 is a few years away yet, but there's a growing buzz around town. That's not just about the Games themselves but also the venues, transport and other infrastructure development that necessarily comes with them, and the activity and opportunities that will generate.
It's a great time to be in Brisbane!
