Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters have won roles on the largest London listing in nearly three years, reports The Am Law Daily.

Essar Energy, a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Essar Group, has set a price range for its planned $2.5bn (£1.6bn) initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange.

The company, which is owned by Indian billionaires Shashi and Ravi Ruia, will float approximately 20%-25% of its shares as part of the offering, with the funds from the IPO set to help the integrated oil and gas unit of Mumbai-based Essar Group expand its power generation and energy exploration operations overseas.

Corporate partners Stuart Grider and Neil Radford are leading the Freshfields team advising Essar, while the company has turned to Amarchand & Mangaldas as local counsel in India.

Radford previously advised metal and mining group Vedanta Resources, the first Indian company to go public in the UK, when it raised $876m (£569m) in 2003. Amarchand also advised Vedanta on that IPO.

Since then, Indian companies, particularly ones in the energy and mining sector, have been some of the largest to come to market as India's economy has doubled in size over the past decade.

Essar's IPO is the second-largest offering by an Indian company after the troubled $3bn (£1.9bn) offering by Reliance Power in 2008, which saw US firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton take the lead role.

Essar's underwriters at Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase are being advised by Linklaters capital markets partner Patrick Sheil and corporate partners Robert Cleaver and Charlie Jacobs.

Indian legal counsel for the underwriters is being provided by Talwar Thakore & Associates, which has a 'best friends' relationship with Linklaters.

Linklaters's Jacobs and Cleaver also advised underwriters JPMorgan and HSBC on the Vedanta offering in 2003.

The Am Law Daily is the website of The American Lawyer, Legal Week's US sister title.