Stephen Coudounaris

Since joining Kirkland, Stephen has worked on the following matters:

• Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, on its acquisition of a 50% controlling stake in Opella from Sanofi, for an enterprise value of €16 billion.
• J.M. Huber Corporation on its $1.8 billion sale of CP Kelco to Tate & Lyle.
• TPG on its €3.9 billion acquisition of Aareon, a European provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions for the property industry.
• Allwyn on its acquisition of stake in Instant Win Gaming Limited.
• Bain Capital Tech Opportunities on its simultaneous acquisition of MSO (a carve-out of the UK mortgage sales and originations software business from Iress) and its majority investment in Finova (a provider of mortgage and savings origination and servicing software) in order to combine the two businesses.
• Funds advised by Apax Partners LLP on the acquisition of Finwave from the Lutech Group, creating (together with the simultaneous acquisition of OCS) one of the preeminent players in financial software in Europe.
• Thoma Bravo’s portfolio company, Proofpoint, on its definitive agreement to acquire Tessian, a cloud email security platform.
• GIC on its investment in Hotel Investment Partners, a leading owner of resort hotels in Southern Europe.
• Beacon Rail on its acquisition of Mitsui Rail Capital Europe.
• Renaissance Learning, an affiliate of Francisco Partners and Blackstone, in its acquisition of GL Education.
• Thoma Bravo and its portfolio company Anaplan on the acquisition of the applications business of the Vuealta Group.
• Further Global Capital Management on Investment in Phaidon International.
• CPP Investments on the acquisition of a stake in Universal Investment.
• BC Partners and Dummen Orange on the sale of Quick Plug.
• Apex Group on its acquisition of Efficient Group (Pty) Ltd in South Africa.
• Apex Fund Management, a portfolio company of TA Associates and Genstar, on the acquisition of the Maitland fund services business. 
• EQT on the €6.8 billion acquisition of Baring Private Equity Asia, a leading private markets investment firm.

Prior to joining Kirkland, Stephen worked on the following matters:

• KPMG:
  • on the collaboration and delivery of a novel blockchain assurance solution with an Australian state government department.
  • on the establishment of a new digital learning managed service offering for government and major corporation clients.
  • on complex agreements to provide technology/AI-based remediation managed services to the Australian ‘Big 4’ banks and other companies.
  • on a master IT services agreement for the delivery of a major digital transformation project for an Australian government department.
  • on a master IT services agreement for the delivery of a significant technology-based outsourcing project for an Australian government department.
  • on the IT agreement for the transformational implementation and managed service operations of a Workday HCM solution for a major Australian university.
• The master supply and services IT agreement for the core network equipment of a major Australian telecommunication provider’s 5G network rollout.
• The multi-billion dollar wholesale broadband agreements for Australia’s wholesale telecommunications provider.
• The master services agreement for the procurement of a technology-based managed service of a core function of a major Australian telecommunications provider.
• New Zealand telecommunication provider’s re-negotiation on its content licensing agreements with all major Hollywood studios for its SVOD service.
• Major global technology company on Australian regulations for autonomous vehicles and drones.
• Major US television network on the launch of its SVOD service in Australia.

KPMG Australia, Sydney

• Senior Legal Counsel, 2020–2021
• Legal Counsel, 2019–2020

Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Sydney

• Lawyer, 2018–2019

Webb Henderson, Sydney

• Lawyer, 2017–2018