Davis Polk advised Ally Financial Inc. in connection with its $2.4 billion initial public offering of common stock. The U.S. Department of the Treasury (U.S. Treasury), as selling shareholder, sold 95,000,000 shares of common stock of Ally as part of the planned exit of its investment in Ally. The underwriters have the option to purchase up to an additional 14,250,000 shares of common stock from U.S. Treasury to cover over-allotments. If the over-allotment option is exercised in full, the proceeds of the offering to U.S. Treasury will be over $2.7 billion.

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised Japara Healthcare Limited on its A$525m initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange. Macquarie Capital acted as lead manager and underwriter and CBA Equities Limited and Morgans Corporate Limited were each co-lead managers.

This offering included a corporate restructure to amalgamate the operating entities and the property investment trust of the Japara group under the new listed company.

Allen & Overy LLP advised BofA Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch, and Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking in connection with the issue of a EUR 300 million convertible bond by LEG Immobilien AG.  The convertible bond with a term of 7.2 years provides for an investor put option after 5.2 years and a coupon of 0.5% p.a. payable semi-annually.

The Allen & Overy-Team comprised partner Dr. Oliver Seiler, counsel Dirk Eisel and associate Dr. Alexander Schlee (all capital markets law, all Frankfurt).

The Firm recently represented Blackstone Mortgage Trust, Inc. in connection with its public offering of 9,200,000 shares of class A common stock, inclusive of the shares sold pursuant to the underwriters’ full exercise of their option to purchase additional shares, in each case at a price to the underwriters of $27.72 per share, or approximately $255.0 million in the aggregate.

Watson, Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised London-based oil and gas exploration company Tower Resources plc (“Tower Resources”) on three concurrent “transformational” transactions; its £19.3 million (US$32m) placing and subscription, proposed acquisition of Rift Petroleum Holdings Limited (“Rift Petroleum”) and proposed farm-in to Block 2B onshore Kenya alongside Taipan Resources Inc (“Taipan Resources”).

The Firm represented SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. (“SeaWorld Entertainment”), a portfolio company of The Blackstone Group L.P. (“Blackstone”), and certain selling stockholders affiliated with Blackstone (the “Selling Stockholders”), in connection with a public offering of common stock by the Selling Stockholders.

K&L Gates LLP has advised Emirates REIT (CEIC) Limited (Emirates REIT), the United Arab Emirates-based real estate investment trust, on its initial public offering (IPO) on NASDAQ Dubai - the first IPO in the UAE in five years. The IPO raised US$175 million (before the exercise of the over-allotment arrangements) and was over-subscribed 3.5 times.

Emirates REIT is the first Shari’ah compliant regulated real estate investment trust incorporated in the Dubai International Financial Centre.

Ashurst advised ALNO AG on the successful issuance of a mandatory convertible bond with a total volume of €14 million for the partial funding of the acquisition of Swiss kitchen manufacturer, AFG Küchen. 14,000 mandatory convertible bonds with a term of five years and an annual interest rate of eight per cent. were placed in a private placement. The bonds are convertible in up to 7 million ALNO shares.

Watson, Farley & Williams (“WFW”), advised Rame Energy plc (“Rame”) on its admission to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange plc. Trading under the AIM symbol RAME, the company raised £2.1 million by way of a placing of new shares and the issue of convertible loan notes.

Issuing 7,222,223 ordinary new shares at 18p, the floatation valued the company at around £1.7 million. 

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised SHUAA Capital and Emirates NBD on the IPO and admission to trading on NASDAQ Dubai Limited of Emirates REIT (CEIC) Limited, the UAE-based real estate investment trust.

This is both the first Nasdaq Dubai IPO since 2009 and the first Shari'a compliant, regulated real estate investment trust to be incorporated in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).  The intention to list was announced on 11 March 2014 and admission took place on 8 April 2014.