Clifford Chance, Davis Polk & Wardwell, King & Wood Mallesons and Chinese law firm Haiwen & Partners have advised on the year’s largest initial public offering (IPO) of $8bn for Postal Savings Bank of China launched today (14 September).
US firm Davis Polk advised state-owned Postal Savings Bank on the float on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with Haiwen acting as Chinese counsel on the deal.
Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance advised the underwriters China International Capital Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as joint sponsors on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, while King & Wood Mallesons acted as Chinese counsel to the banks.
Clifford Chance’s team was led by China co-managing partner Tim Wang with Hong Kong partners Amy Lo and Fang Liu, supported by Singapore-based Jean Thio.
Postal Savings Bank has more than 40,000 branches across China and more than 500 million retail customers.
The bank’s IPO is the largest share offering globally so far in 2016. The deal is the largest IPO since the record breaking offering on the New York Stock Exchange of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which raised more than $25bn as the largest such deal in history.
Clifford Chance’s China team has advised on several major Hong Kong IPOs this year, including the float of China Everbright Securities for $1.1bn and Bank of Tianjin for $990m.
Other major IPO mandates this year have seen Linklaters and Clifford Chance act on the float of Metro Bank in March, valuing the bank at around £1.6bn.
In January, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Allen & Overy and King & Wood Mallesons all advised on the proposed IPO of Clydesdale and Yorkshire Bank.
matthew.field@legalease.co.uk
