Flickr pic: daquellamanera
It’s not all bankruptcy doom and gloom around here.
Some companies are doing well enough and are sufficiently optimistic to test the IPO market. In fact, this week’s trickle might be the first sign that the IPO drought is ending.
Four companies are launching this week, and we’ve tracked down the counsel and some of the interesting backstories.
Chemspec and Duoyuan, both Chinese companies, debuted on Wednesday. Chemspec, a maker of specialty chemicals, raised $73 million and opened at $9.45, just above its $9 price. As with many cross-border IPOs, Chemspec’s had its quirks, making it slightly more complicated than usual. The ADS offering involved a Cayman subsidiary of a Hong Kong company that operates on the mainland. Chris Lin of Simpson Thacher’s Hong Kong office led the issuer’s team, with support from Maples and Calder on Cayman law, and Jin Mao PRC Lawyers for PRC law. The underwriters were represented by Portia Ku of the Shanghai office of O’Melveny & Myers, with support from King & Wood Law Firm for PRC law.
Duoyuan has a similar structure, with the listing company a British Virgin Islands holding company for two mainland companies. Man Chiu Lee and Arthur Mok of Hogan & Hartson’s Hong Kong office were issuer’s counsel and, just like on Chemspec, Maples and Calder supported on BVI law. Kurt Berney, also of O’Melveny’s Shanghai office, was counsel for underwriters led by Piper Jaffray and Oppenheimer. PRC law was handled by Commerce & Finance Law Offices for the issuer and for the underwriters by Tian Yuan Law Firm.
Closer to home, MediData raised $88.2 million by offering 6,300,000 at $14.00, above the range of $11.00 to $13.00. Paul Jacobs (who for some reason has a tacky quote under his picture – “Experience with a Business-Oriented Approach”) and Warren Nimitz of Fulbright & Jaworski were counsel to the issuer, a clinical-development-software company that will trade on Nasdaq. Christopher Austin and Michael Beauvais of Ropes & Gray in Boston were counsel to Citi, Credit Suisse and the other underwriters. Insight Venture Partners has reportedly had a 4.5x return on its $50 million investment in the company.
[Ed: O'Melveny had an even busier week than we knew. In addition to representing the underwriters on both of the Chinese IPOs, the firm has also informed us that Ilan Nissan, co-head of the firm's M&A/PE group, represented Insight on this exit. Added 6/29/09]
It’s been a long time coming, but Invesco Mortgage Capital is also set to debut on the NYSE: the company first filed its S-11 on June 13 of last year (when it was known as Invesco Agency Securities). Jay Bernstein and Andrew Epstein of Clifford Chance New York are shepherding them through the process of becoming a REIT. David Goldschmidt of Skadden represents the underwriters, led by Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
Meanwhile, KKR has scrapped its IPO, which it first filed for two years ago. Of course, that was pretty unlikely to happen after the company announced its plan to go public by absorbing its Amsterdam-listed subsidiary. Now they’re going for new levels of complication – it would merge its management company with the Amsterdam company, keep that entity listed in the Netherlands and have the option for a year on whether to move to a US exchange. PEHub has aptly dubbed that plan a “double secret reverse IPO.”
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