Slaughter and May and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are among a number of international law firms to have picked up mandates on two major Hong Kong Stock Exchange listings which closed this week.

China's largest pharmaceutical company, Sinopharm, raised HK$8.73bn (£688m), while Metallurgical Corp raised HK$18.2bn (£1.4bn) from the listings, which together dwarfed the initial public offering (IPO) activity to have taken place on the Hong Kong exchange so far this year.

On the larger listing, Slaughters took the lead role for Metallurgical, led by Hong Kong-based capital markets partner Benita Yu. Davis Polk & Wardwell provided US law advice, led by corporate partner Show-Mao Chen, who splits his time between Hong Kong and Beijing.

Freshfields and Shearman & Sterling advised the underwriters on local and US law respectively. Hong Kong-based corporate partner Kay-Ian Ng led the Freshfields team while Beijing-based capital markets partner Alan Seem led for Shearman.

On the Sinopharm transaction, Baker & McKenzie advised the issuer, led by Shanghai-based capital markets partner Tony Jacobsen and Hong Kong-based capital markets partner Brian Spires. US rival Morrison & Foerster advised the underwriters, led by Hong Kong managing partner Ven Tan.

Morgan Stanley, Cit, China International Capital and Citic Securities underwrote the Metallurgic listing, while CICC, UBS and Morgan Stanley arranged the Sinopharm offering.