Wall Street heavyweight succeeds where others have struggled to secure key Russia roles. Alex Newman reports

Navigating the rough waters of Russia's deal markets is notoriously difficult, but Wall Street leader Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has been reminding rivals of late how effective it is at securing and executing these kinds of deals. 

While initial public offerings (IPOs) globally remain few and far between, Russian companies have been shunning Moscow's Micex-RTS exchange in favour of safer markets such as London and the US – with listings driven in part by the Government's ongoing state privatisation programme – and Cleary has picked up a string of issuer-side mandates. 

Last month, the firm advised the Central Bank of Russia and Sberbank on the $5.2bn (£3.2bn) secondary public offering of Sberbank shares in London and Moscow. 

The transaction, the largest Russian equity deal since 2007 and the fourth largest ever international capital-raising on the London Stock Exchange, comes on the back of advisory roles for telecoms giant Megafon as it prepares to float a 20% stake in London worth £2.5bn, and Promsvyazbank's $500m (£309m) joint London-Moscow IPO.

"I would say that in terms of issuer-side representation, Cleary are arguably the highest profile firm in the market," says Latham & Watkins partner David Stewart, speaking from Kazakhstan.

With a core Russian capital markets team of around six partners – backed by a team of more than 40 Russia and CIS-focused lawyers in Paris, Washington DC, New York and London – Cleary has traditionally had a strong track record in debt capital markets work. 

Recent mandates include serving as counsel to Gazprom Neft in its $10bn (£6.2bn) debut MTN programme and advising the Russian Federation in its $7bn (£4.4bn) senior unsecured bond offering in London in April, the largest deal by an emerging markets sovereign since 2000.

In the past few years, however, the firm has moved away from a more balanced strategy of advising both underwriters and issuers to lean increasingly on issuer-based roles on equity deals. 

London-based partner David Gottlieb comments: "While we represent both issuers and underwriters in IPOs, where possible we like to represent the issuer. This allows us to build long-term relationships and, we hope, have the opportunity to provide a broader range of legal services to these companies beyond just the IPO."

The focus on issuer-side mandates is a strategy which one capital markets partner at a magic circle firm focusing on bank roles counters may not always pay off. He says: "Our strategy hasn't adversely impacted our ability to consistently win work. In the case of one client, if you look at their corporate issuer side representation, they've changed firms multiple times, whereas we've stayed acting for the dealers throughout."

Another part of Cleary's strategy, Moscow-based partner Murat Akuyev contends, is to go after the high-profile, complex work: "We try to focus on the most challenging and complex transactions which haven't been done in the marketplace before. I think it's fair to say we're known for working on some novel situations."

According to US-trained Gottlieb, who recently moved back to London from Moscow, Sberbank is an example of one such transaction, with the new wave of privatisations being handled differently to earlier deals. Given that Cleary first established a Moscow office in 1991, many lawyers in Cleary's capital markets team have been involved in Russian deals for a decade, with some having almost 20 years' experience in a market in which others have struggled to gain foothold due to its volatility. 

The firm has also been aided by its relationship – ongoing since the late 1990s – with the Russian Government, which it has advised on numerous occasions. For now, though, it intends to build relationships with Russian corporates first and foremost in order to benefit from the raft of imminent Russian privatisations and listings – whichever international market the company should choose. 

CLEARY'S RUSSIAN HIGHLIGHTS 2012

• Sberbank on its $5.2bn (£3.2bn) secondary public offering of shares in London and Moscow

• Megafon on its push to float a 20% stake in London worth £2.5bn

• Promsvyazbank on a $500m (£309m) joint London-Moscow IPO

• The Russian Federation's $7bn (£4.4bn) senior unsecured bond offering in London