Cleary Gottlieb has had an office in London for more than 35 years. We offer premier knowledge of English law as well as a unique cross-border expertise that makes us unmatched in handling matters involving the law of multiple jurisdictions.
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Sep 22, 2008
Cleary Gottlieb represented Barclays in its agreement to acquire Lehman Brothers' North American investment banking and capital markets businesses.
May 20, 2008
Cleary Gottlieb has represented an interested party in the appeal from a first instance judgement relating to the manner in which the receiver of the troubled Whistlejacket SIV should distribute its assets, which have a reported face value of approximately $7 billion. Cleary Gottlieb is also advising interested parties in the receivership, liquidation or restructuring of other SIVs and CDOs, including Cheyne, Rhineland, Rhinebridge and Coltrane. Cleary Gottlieb advised potential liquidity facility providers in the proposed "Super-SIV" known as M-LEC.
Dec 12, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb advised the sponsor, Deutsche Bank, and the joint bookrunners, Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Limited, Morgan Stanley Securities Limited and ABN AMRO Rothschild, in the initial public offering by Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation plc of 252,500,000 ordinary shares on the London Stock Exchange. The transaction, one of the first in which Cleary Gottlieb advised on all aspects of a primary London listing of a UK-incorporated company post the adoption of the Prospectus Directive, raised over $2.7 billion, valued the company at approximately $15 billion and was one of the London Stock Exchange’s largest IPOs in 2007. The transaction closed on December 12, 2007.
ENRC is a diversified natural resources group with integrated mining, processing, energy, logistical and marketing operations. The group’s production assets are located primarily in Kazakhstan, where it employs approximately 62,000 people and, in 2006, accounted for 4% of the country’s GDP.
Mar 26, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb acted as U.S., English and Russian counsel to Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, in its $8.85 billion equity offering, which closed on March 26. The Russian subsidiaries of Credit Suisse and JP Morgan acted as brokers for the offering. Sberbank’s offering is the first public equity offering of a Russian bank and is the second-largest Russian equity offering to date (the largest being the July 2006 $10.6 billion Rosneft offering, on which Cleary Gottlieb also advised the issuer).
The offering was carried out under Russian procedures for an open subscription of shares, using only a Russian statutory prospectus. Current shareholders, exercising their preemptive rights, took up approximately $5.6 billion of the offering; new investors took up the remainder.
Aug 15, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb is advising J.C. Flowers & Co. LLC on its €3 billion sale of Dutch bank NIBC to Kaupthing Bank.
J.C. Flowers is a private equity firm based in New York that is focused solely on the financial service sector. Its latest fund has over $7 billion in commitments from investors. J.C. Flowers leads a consortium of shareholders which currently owns NIBC, a merchant bank focussed on the mid-cap segment in western Europe with a global distribution network.
Kaupthing, a European bank headquartered in Iceland, is the seventh largest bank in the Nordic region based on market capitalization.
Aug 13, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb represented Helios Investment Partners in the acquisition of a 22% stake in a joint venture vehicle established by Portugal Telecom to hold all of its telecommunications assets and interests in sub-Saharan Africa. The joint venture is valued at US$1.2 billion and the deal closed on August 13.
The joint venture represents a significant investment by Helios and its coinvestment partners in the region, and is an important strategic maneuver for Portugal Telecom. Through the joint venture the parties intend to develop a unified, coherent multi-strategy telecommunications services provider capable of operating throughout sub-Saharan Africa by combining Portugal Telecoms' broad operational experience with Helios' financial expertise and its extensive knowledge of, and contacts in, the region.
Helios is a London-based investment firm which focusses on making private equity investments in sub-Saharan Africa. Cleary Gottlieb has assisted Helios with the establishment of its initial investment fund, and has also assisted Helios with a previous investment. Portugal Telecom is an international telecommunications company with businesses and assets in Europe, Africa and South America. It is listed in New York and Lisbon and is the largest public company in Portugal.
Aug 10, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb represented, in both Moscow and London, Tele2 AB ("Tele2"), Europe’s leading alternative telecom operator, in its sale of 100% of the shares of Closed Joint Stock Company "Corporation Severnaya Korona", Tele2’s cellular operator in the Irkutsk region of the Russian Federation, to Open Joint Stock Company "Vimpel-Communications" ("Vimpelcom") for approximately US$232 million. The share purchase agreement was signed and the transaction closed on August 10, 2007.
Simultaneously, Tele2 and Vimpelcom entered into a 10-year national roaming agreement which will enable Tele2 customers seamless roaming across Vimpelcom’s network in Russia.
The structure of this transaction is unique for the Russian market.
Mar 22, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb is representing long-time client 3M Company in the acquisition by its subsidiary 3M UK Holdings Limited of UK specialist-coatings supplier and manufacturer E Wood Holdings plc. The board of 3M and E Wood announced a recommended cash offer for the entire issued and to be issued share capital of E Wood on March 22, 2007.
The offer is a public takeover subject to the UK City Code on Takeovers and Mergers. As part of the transaction 3M has secured irrevocable undertakings to accept the offer from the target board and certain other shareholders, representing in aggregate over 50% of the issued and outstanding shares of E Wood. The deal is scheduled to close later this year, subject to receiving acceptances from target shareholders, and is conditional upon standard antitrust approvals being obtained.
3M is a global diversified technology group serving customers in more than 200 countries around the world with its headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. 3M's brands include Scotch, Post-it, Scotchgard, Thinsulate, Scotch-Brite, Filtrete, Command and Vikuiti. Cleary Gottlieb acted for 3M on its successful recommended cash offer for pharmaceutical company Biotrace International plc in 2006, which was also subject to the UK Takeover Code.
Jul 03, 2007
Cleary Gottlieb is representing Citigroup Global Markets Inc. as financial advisor to Equinix Inc. in its proposed acquisition of IX Europe plc under a "UK scheme of arrangement," a type of UK merger process. The deal is worth approximately £241 million ($482 million), or about 125p per share.
Equinix is the leading global provider of network-neutral data centers and internet exchange services for enterprises, content companies, systems integrators and network services providers. IX Europe is a leading provider of co-location centers in Europe.
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