Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised John Laing Group plc on its IPO and listing on the London Stock Exchange. The initial public offering, which priced this morning at 195p per share, included both an institutional offer and a retail offer through intermediaries.

The deal values John Laing at £715.5m and the offer raised gross proceeds of approximately £250m for the company and the selling shareholder, Henderson Infrastructure Holdco (Jersey) Limited.

John Laing is an international originator, active investor and manager of infrastructure projects. Its business is focused on major transport, social and environmental infrastructure projects awarded under governmental public-private partnership programmes, and renewable energy projects across a range of international markets.
As at 31 September 2014, the company had interests in a large, diversified portfolio of 44 infrastructure assets, with a total book value of £715m.

Commenting on the deal, lead partner Oliver Lazenby said: ‘We are delighted to have advised John Laing on its successful IPO; the transaction had many elements in addition to the core IPO, including a deal with the John Laing Pension Fund, a new debt facility, and a complicated pre-IPO group re-organisation. As well as advising longstanding client Henderson, as selling shareholder, we very much enjoyed working alongside the executive team at John Laing'.

The Freshfields team, which also advised the selling shareholder, was led by corporate partner Oliver Lazenby. The team included corporate partner Jonathan Baird and senior associate Giles Rowbotham.

The deal continues Freshfields’ very strong run in equity capital markets work; having advised on most of the large IPOs in London in 2014 (including Poundland, B&M, Exova, Saga, Zoopla, SSP, Spire, TSB and Virgin Money), Freshfields has started 2015 by advising the issuer on each of the two completed London IPOs to date – HSS and John Laing - cementing its position as the pre-eminent equity capital markets practice in London.