King & Wood Mallesons and US firms were the main beneficiaries of the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history, Alibaba’s $25bn listing, which generated $15.8m in legal fees while The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)’s Citizens flotation also saw US firms take leading roles.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett advised Alibaba on US federal securities and New York state law with China head Leiming Chen and partners Daniel Fertig and William Hinman advising, while Sullivan & Cromwell partners William Chua, Jay Clayton and Sarah Payne advised the underwriters, including Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Maples and Calder advised on Cayman Islands law, while Chinese law was covered by Fangda Partners for Alibaba and King & Wood Mallesons for the underwriters.
Alibaba initially sold $21.8bn in shares but this was boosted to $25bn after an option to sell more was exercised due to high demand. The legal fees for the Chinese e-commerce giant’s IPO were revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing as being $15.8m, considerably higher than the legal fees stemming from RBS’s Citizens’ IPO, which totalled $6.7m.
US firms Davis Polk & Wardwell and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton advised on RBS’s 25% flotation of its US subsidiary Citizens Financial Group. Davis Polk’s corporate partners Nicholas Kronfeld and Luigi De Ghenghi led for Citizens Financial, while Cleary Gottlieb partners Leslie Silverman and Derek Bush represented the underwriters, which include Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk