Maples and Calder and Weil, Gotshal & Manges represented Edwards Group Limited, a Cayman Islands company which has its headquarters in Crawley, England, in connection with its initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York. Shares of the manufacturer of industrial vacuum equipment were priced at $8 per share; and trading of the approximately 12.5 million shares on offer commenced on 11 May 2012. At pricing, the market capitalisation of Edwards Group was $903 million. The IPO closed on 18 May 2012.
Shaun Denton, Managing Partner of the Maples and Calder London office, commented: “We were very pleased to be involved with the Edwards Group IPO, one of the few successful premium equity offerings in the last six months.”
The Edwards Group, with over 3,300 employees in approximately 30 countries worldwide, is a leading manufacturer of sophisticated vacuum products and abatement systems and a leading provider of related value-added services. In the year ended 31 December 2011, it had a turnover of approximately $1.1 billion. It sells its products and services to more than 20,000 customer accounts across Asia, the Americas and Europe.
Maples and Calder acted as Cayman Islands counsel to Edwards Group and the Maples team was led by Corporate partner Jack Marriott in London and included Corporate associate Jess Stock. Maples Fund Services (Cayman) Limited has been engaged as registrar in respect of the ordinary shares of Edwards Group Limited. The Maples team worked closely with the Weil team, who acted as English and New York counsel to Edwards Group, and the Edwards Group legal team led by Adam Ramsay, General Counsel. Underwriters Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank were represented by Davis Polk & Wardwell.
