Mayer Brown represented the London-based GW Pharmaceuticals plc, a biopharmaceutical company, in a $101.1 million US public offering and listing of American Depositary Shares on the Nasdaq Global Market in an offering led by Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Cowen and Company, LLC. The transaction follows GW Pharmaceuticals’ US initial public offering in May 2013, on which Mayer Brown also represented the company.

Dechert LLP’s Paris office advised MarketScience France (“MarketScience”), which specializes in data-mining solutions, in connection with its fundraising and its partnership with Pentalog, a French-based information technology company operating in France and Eastern Europe. MarketScience is developing an application that will aid analysts and traders in investment decisions by compiling information from global financial markets. It will be available through Bloomberg. Pentalog’s investment in MarketScience is structured in two tranches, via the issuance of complex securities.

Clifford Chance has advised OCP Asia on its arrangement of and subscription for US$10 million in convertible notes and US$55 million in amortising notes, together with detachable warrants equal to 18.5% of the face value of the amortising notes, as financing for Australia's Guildford Coal Limited (ASX: GUF).

The transaction is particularly notable for the complexity of the instruments (both series of notes are secured and listed through Euroclear) and for bespoke terms that incorporate a number of novel features more commonly seen in Asian markets.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised a consortium of underwriters on a placement of H shares by China Oilfield Services Limited (COSL). COSL will raise around HK$5,819m (US$748m) through the placing of an aggregate of 276,272,000 new H shares.

Freshfields advised the underwriters, including CICC, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, on both the Hong Kong and US law aspects of the placing.

The Freshfields team was led by China chairman Teresa Ko, corporate partner Richard Wang and US corporate partner Calvin Lai.

Herbert Smith Freehills advised Pact Group Holdings Ltd on its initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange. The offer of over 170 million shares raised AUD$649 million.

The offering, which occurred on 17 December 2013, had Credit Suisse and Macquarie Capital as joint lead managers and Deutsche Bank as a co-manager, and included an offering to institutional investors in the United States. 

Stephenson Harwood advised Fujian Nuoqi Co., Ltd. (Fujian Nuoqi) on its H share listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited which raised close to HK$320 million at the offer price of HK$2.13 per H share. Fujian Nuoqi’s IPO dealing commenced on 9 January 2014.

Herbert Smith Freehills has advised iBuy Group Limited (iBuy) on its initial public offer on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX code: IBY).

Lawrence Graham's investment funds team has acted on the issue of zero dividend preference shares ("ZDPs") by The Conygar Investment Company PLC ("Conygar") and Vinaland Limited ("Vinaland").  In each case the issues involved the formation of a new wholly owned subsidiary of the client (that issued the ZDPs) and the publication of a prospectus by the subsidiary in conjunction with the admission of the ZDPs to the Official List (by way of a standard listing) of the London Stock Exchange.

The investment funds team at Lawrence Graham has advised GCP Sovereign Infrastructure Debt Limited on its initial public offering, raising U.S.$125 million by way of a placing and offer for subscription.  GCP Sovereign Infrastructure Debt Limited's shares were admitted to trading on the Specialist Fund Market of the London Stock Exchange in late December 2013.

Davis Polk advised Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, as sole underwriter, in connection with the SEC-registered secondary offering of 11,879,000 shares of common stock of U.S. Silica Holdings, Inc., which includes 379,000 shares of common stock purchased by the underwriter pursuant to its option to purchase additional shares.