Lawyers Double Dip as Chinese Clients 'Go Private'
The same law firms that rode a wave of U.S. IPOs by mainland companies last decade are cashing in again as those clients pull stakes and head home to China.
June 22, 2015 at 04:07 AM
8 minute read
Investors aren't the only people benefitting from the wave of Chinese companies delisting from U.S. stock exchanges and returning to their home country. Lawyers are enjoying the trend, too.
In a deal announced last Wednesday, Kirkland & Ellis made news when it was revealed the firm is advising a consortium of investors that offered about $9 billion to acquire Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360 Co. Ltd. and delist it from the New York Stock Exchange—the largest ever going-private proposal for a U.S.-listed Chinese company, topping the $3.7 billion offer for Focus Media Holding Ltd. in 2012. Two days later Qihoo announced that Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom would represent the independent special committee charged with reviewing the offer.
Qihoo is far from unique in its plan to leave the U.S. capital markets for Chinese exchanges like those in Shanghai and Shenzhen in search of a higher valuation. In fact, the deal was also one of about a dozen proposed privatizations of U.S.-listed Chinese companies this year, prompting work for not just Kirkland and Skadden but Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, O'Melveny & Myers, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Fenwick & West and Morrison & Foerster as well. That's because surging stock markets in China have made a return more attractive than it had been in the past. Indeed, the Shanghai and Shenzhen composite indexes this year are up 38 percent and 94 percent, respectively. Compare that to 8 percent and 2 percent, respectively, for the Nasdaq and NYSE.
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