International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised HSBC Rail UK Limited in connection with the restructuring and refinancing of its UK rail leasing business, Eversholt Rail, leading to its £2.1bn sale to a consortium of infrastructure funds – 3i Infrastructure, Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Star Capital Partners.
Bird & Bird has advised Darwin Strategic Limited, a specialist subsidiary of Evolution Group plc focussed on the provision of equity finance facilities, on a £25m equity finance facility provided to Nighthawk Energy plc, an AIM-listed company focussing on oil and gas development and production in the US.
Tags: Bird & Bird
Together with the global law firm Linklaters LLP, Wolf Theiss advised the private equity investment company Triton on all legal and tax-related issues connected with the takeover of Wittur, the international lift components manufacturer.
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP recently represented long time client StreamServe Inc. in connection with its all cash merger with a wholly owned subsidiary of Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ: OTEX). The transaction was completed on October 26, 2010, and is valued at approximately US$71 million, subject to customary purchase price and holdback adjustments.
Tags: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLPOrrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP represented SodaStream International Ltd. in its initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. acted as the joint bookrunning managers for the offering. The estimated net proceeds to SodaStream, after deducting the underwriting discount and estimated offering expenses payable by the company, are US$98.9 million.
Tags: Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP
The international law firm Clifford Chance advised French financial investor Chequers Capital on the acquisition of Silver Care Holding, a Munich based operator of nursing homes, and the related acquisition financing.
Tags: Clifford Chance LLP
Shearman & Sterling acted as US counsel to a consortium of 27 banks led by Banca IMI, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs International and Mediobanca as Joint Global Coordinators in connection with the initial offering by Enel, Italy’s largest electricity company, and concurrent listing of the ordinary shares of Enel Green Power. The transaction, which raised gross proceeds for approximately €2.264 billion, is the largest IPO in Europe since 2008. Enel Green Power has been included in the FTSE MIB as one of the 40 largest listed companies in Italy in terms of market capitalization.
Tags: Shearman & Sterling LLP
Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP advised Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Agricole Securities (USA) Inc. and HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. as joint bookrunners and representatives of the underwriters on an SEC-registered offering by Rio Tinto Finance (USA) Limited of $2 billion aggregate principal amount of notes guaranteed by Rio Tinto plc and Rio Tinto Limited. The offering consisted of $500 million principal amount of 1.875% notes due 2015, $1 billion principal amount of 3.5% notes due 2020 and $500 million principal amount of 5.2% notes due 2040.
Tags: Davis Polk & WardwellRobert here. Please note that Robert Kinney and I will be back in Hong Kong all next week for meetings. Although our schedule is tight, we can fit in some meetings with prospective biglaw or in-house candidates. Feel free to reach out to us at .
In just the past few weeks, we have seen a noticeable rise in the expat / cola allowances for US associates at some of the most competitive group of US and UK firms in HK / China. In fact , it appears that for the first time $80,000 may be taking hold as the eventual standard in HK / China. For the past several years, while there were anywhere from zero to four firms paying as much as $80,000 expat / cola for associates with no children, most of the top US and UK firms remained in the $60,000 to $65,000 allowance range. The competitive range continues to be $60,000 to $80,000, but more firms are at the top of that range than ever before in HK / China. Further, two top US firms pay $90,000 expat / cola (although one of those has tax equalization on the base).
While there has been already a trend in ‘10 for a number of the US and UK firms with less competitive expat / cola allowances to step it up (see http://www.theasiachronicles.com/archives/2264), there has until very recently not been much movement in the competitive group, most of which have allowances in the mid $60,000’s (keep in mind that many major US and UK firms are still not in that competitive expat allowance range of $60,000 plus, but the size of that group is becoming smaller).
Tags: Hong Kong
Morrison & Foerster recently secured a victory for Target Corporation in a class action case brought by consumer Raymundo Sevidal, who alleged fraud and violation of unfair competition and false advertising laws after purchasing three clothing items from Target’s website that were misidentified as made in the United States. On October 28, 2010, the California Court of Appeal agreed with the trial court’s refusal to certify the class based on its finding that the proposed class was not ascertainable.
Tags: Morrison & Foerster LLP