Tom Serong, Principal
Tom Serong has more than 20 years experience in investment banking and corporate advisory. Tom worked for Morgan Stanley for more than 15 years, in New York, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore. He worked in Australia from 1998 to 2006, before moving to Singapore. His final role at Morgan Stanley was Head of Utilities and Infrastructure, South East Asia. Following Morgan Stanley, Tom was Head of Power and Utilities for Asia Pacific at Nomura, based in Hong Kong. While in Asia, Tom continued to work on numerous cross border M&A deals into Australia.
Throughout his career Tom has completed more than $35 billion of M&A transactions. In addition to public market and private market M&A, his transaction experience also includes IPOs, leverage and acquisition finance and high yield bond financings. Major transactions that Tom has worked on include: the A$5.3 billion South Australia electricity privatisation; various transactions for Singapore Power including the A$5.1 billion acquisition of TXU Australia, the A$1.4 billion IPO of SPAusNet, A$8 billion acquisition of Alinta; and, the S$12 billion privatisation of the Singapore electricity generation sector for Temasek, the Singapore government investment holding company.
Tom holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) from the University of Melbourne.
Contact: tom.serong@keypacific.com
Philip Ashley, Senior Advisor
Philip commenced his career at Rio Tinto (then CRA) with his departing position being a Manager Mining Broken Hill Operations. After 11 years with Rio Tinto, Philip joined Normandy Mining as Group Mining Engineer. In this role Philip participated in all major corporate acquisitions undertaken by Normandy over a 10 year period. Acquisitions included Mt Leyshon, North’s Tennant Creek assets, Australian Consolidated Minerals, Aztec Limited, Boddington gold mine, BRGM properties and the merger of Poseidon Gold, GMK and North Flinders Mines.
In 1997, Philip joined J.P. Morgan as Vice President, Investment Banking where he specialised in mergers and acquisitions in the resource sector. Transactions and advice included sale of Peabody’s Australian coal assets, Pechiney’s bid for Worsley Alumina and the sale of ARCO’s Australian coal mines.
In 2001 Philip established an advisory firm specialising in the resources sector. Major assignments included provision of acquisition and strategic advice to MIM and to several banks. Philip joined Pacific Road in late 2002 where he has been involved in gold, copper, coal and iron ore projects in Australia and Asia.
Philip holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) Mining. He also attended the Mt Eliza Advanced Management Program and J.P. Morgan’s Associate program in New York.
Contact: philip.ashley@keypacific.com
