Simon Tsapepas

Simon leads the Madison Branson Group, bringing more than a decade of transactional, structuring and financing experience to Madison Branson Capital’s clients.

Biography

Simon is the Group Chief Executive of the Madison Branson Group and a practising solicitor. He has built the group into a multi-disciplinary platform spanning legal, capital solutions and corporate advisory.

Known as a skilled and commercially astute negotiator, Simon operates at the intersection of law and capital. He has acted for major banks, non-bank lenders, fund managers, ASX-listed companies, family offices and founders on transactions concerning debt and equity, and brings that same transactional discipline to Madison Branson Capital’s mandates.

His core capabilities include:

• Structured debt and property financing: senior, mezzanine and preferred equity;
• Corporate advisory, M&A and business sales;
• Capital raising readiness and ASX / Corporations Act advisory;
• Fund establishment, trust structuring and investment management arrangements;
• Special situations, distressed acquisitions and refinancing;
• Shareholder transactions, buy-outs and succession; and
• Cross-border structuring, including the UAE and Southeast Asia.

Examples of work – Financing & Capital

• Advised on more than $1b in loan settlements across real estate sector transactions, acting for non-bank lenders on straight property, mezzanine and construction financing for residential, commercial and industrial developments.
• Advised on structuring and settling syndication, commercial and residential development financing across senior, junior mezzanine and preferred equity transactions with gross realisations in excess of $3bn+.
• Advised an Australian funds management group on a $100m loan facility to establish a loan book and for investments in listed securities.
• Advised on a client’s site purchase and facilitated its $145m commercial 11-storey tower development.
• Structured an indicative second-ranking mortgage facility over an income-producing tourism and accommodation asset, including co-borrower partnership arrangements
• Advised a lender on facility enforcement strategy, including default interest construction and recoverability analysis.

Examples of work – Corporate Advisory & Transactions

• Advised an ASX-listed company on secondary capital raising readiness, including Corporations Act s708A cleansing notice constraints arising from the company’s trading suspension history.
• Negotiated and documented a shareholder exit for a commercial building services group valued at approximately $40m, structured as a selective off-market share buy-back under a comprehensive deed of settlement.
• Acted on the sale of a specialist imaging business, negotiating deferred consideration protections including acceleration rights and a bank guarantee condition precedent.
• Led a consortium bid for a regional winery estate through a formal liquidation process, including acquisition structuring across HoldCo / OpCo / LandCo entities and liquor licensing transition arrangements.
• Drafted and negotiated a unitholders agreement for a multi-principal property investment trust, including pre-emption, valuation methodology and insurance-funded succession architecture.

Examples of work – Funds & Structuring

• Advised on establishing and structuring an AFSL-licensed corporate authorised representative and investment manager for a debt fund.
• Advised an investment management fund on the establishment of a new fund trust and settling property and construction financing for the fund.
• Advised a technology/web3 group on its expansion into Singapore, including group structuring, incorporation, two fundraising rounds, corporate governance and international partnership transactions.