US firms take lead as pharma heavyweight taps bond markets

Jones Day and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have won lead roles on a $1bn (£626m) US notes offering by pharmaceuticals giant Sanofi.

Jones Day advised Sanofi with a team headed by Paris capital markets partner Linda Hesse.

Meanwhile, Cleary advised the underwriters – Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities and Natixis – led by Paris capital markets partner Andrew Bernstein.

Sanofi, which rebranded from its former name of Sanofi-Aventis in May this year, has issued the notes in a bid to raise capital and repay existing borrowings.

Jones Day's Hesse said: "Sanofi has a large dollar-based business, so it made sense for them to issue this bond in the US. There has been an increasing amount of [capital markets] activity from French companies, with France Telecom also issuing a $2bn (£1.3bn) bond last month.

"When the recession hit in 2008-09 it was important for French companies to raise their profiles in other markets so that they would have a base of investors, and we are now seeing the fruit of this."

Sanofi carried out a shelf registration – a notice of intention to make a public offering by fulfilling all of the regulation requirements – early in March 2010, so that it could go to the US market quickly when conditions were more favourable.

The offering comes after Sanofi completed the $20bn (£12.7bn) acquisition of biopharmaceutical company Genzyme in April this year, in a deal that saw Weil Gotshal & Manges and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz take the key roles for Sanofi and Genzyme respectively.