Summer surge gifts top City firms big-ticket IPOs
A busy seven days for initial public offerings (IPOs) has gifted corporate mandates to a raft of City law firms as the number of companies coming to market surges before the summer break. White & Case, Norton Rose and Baker & McKenzie were among the main recipients of the listings, which had a combined value of more than £3bn.
June 21, 2007 at 12:13 AM
3 minute read
A busy seven days for initial public offerings (IPOs) has gifted corporate mandates to a raft of City law firms as the number of companies coming to market surges before the summer break.
White & Case, Norton Rose and Baker & McKenzie were among the main recipients of the listings, which had a combined value of more than £3bn.
White & Case secured a role advising Indian real estate group DLF on its record $2.4bn (£1.2bn) IPO. The company floated last week (13 June) on the Indian National Stock Exchange. It marked the largest Indian company listing, a record that previously stood at $1.2bn (£608m).
Corporate finance partner Francis Fitzherbert-Brockholes led the team for White & Case, while Linklaters advised the underwriters.
Fitzherbert-Brockholes told Legal Week: "There is a kind of medieval cyclicality about the way things work – you tend to get peaks at certain times of the year and this is one – before the summer and people take a break."
Last week also saw the float of solar power company Crystalox Solar for £542m on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). Norton Rose corporate partners Robin Brooks and Stephen Rigby advised the company, with Munich head Alexander von Bergwelt leading on German issues. Ashurst advised sponsor JP Morgan Cazenove, and underwriters JP Morgan Securities and Jefferies International.
Commenting on the state of the IPO market, Brooks said: "People are capitalising on a very strong market. We have a very strong pipeline of IPOs."
Meanwhile, the first LSE listing of a Ukraine company was confirmed last week (14 June), with Bakers advising Ferrexpo.
Bakers' London-based international securities partner Peter Magyar is advising on the deal, assisted by M&A partner Tim Sheddick and corporate associates Roy Pearce and Sophie Chandauka.
Bakers has advised Ferrexpo since around 2004.
Magyar told Legal Week that factors including a favourable equity market, especially for former CIS companies and the impending summer break are playing a part in the current surge of activity.
He added: "Companies are also going out on 2006 accounts which, under the Prospectus Directive, usually can not be older than 135 days."
Other IPOs to have taken place so far this month include the listing of Talvivaara Mining and New Star Asset Management.
White & Case London corporate partner Philip Broke advised Talvivaara, while Jones Day, led by London corporate partner Hilary Winter, advised JP Morgan Cazenove as sponsor and underwriter on the £180m listing.
Olswang corporate partner Simon Morgan advised New Star on its £364m listing on the LSE, while Linklaters advised the sponsors and financial advisers UBS Investment, Citi and Goldman Sachs.
In Europe, Hengeler Mueller and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton also bagged lead roles on the A1bn (£677m) IPO of drug packaging maker Gerresheimer – the largest completed float in Germany this year.
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