Australian firm Minter Ellison has won a tender to advise on a multimillion-dollar Asian IT outsourcing deal for Canadian insurance giant Manulife Financial, beating off the company’s regular global adviser Clifford Chance.
The company, which has a market capitalisation of around $13.3bn (£8.34bn), is currently outsourcing its IT data centre in Hong Kong and Japan with a view to rolling out similar deals in other Asia Pacific centres.
Although Minters has worked on a couple of M&A deals in Australia, this is the first time that the Hong Kong office has advised Manulife.
“We were instructed because of our IT expertise,” said IT partner Anthony Lloyd, who heads Minters’ technology and communications group in Asia.
Lloyd approached the client when he heard it was looking to outsource its IT in the region. After initially providing some strategy advice, the firm was then asked to pitch for the work, as was Clifford Chance.
