Squire Patton Boggs has acted as US counsel to India’s largest power producer, NTPC Limited, in connection with the sale of a 6.6% stake in the business by the Government of India, which has raised Rs. 9,100 crore (approximately US$1.42 billion).
Biswajit Chatterjee, partner and co-chair of Squire Patton Boggs’ India Practice, assisted by senior associate Kaustubh George and associate Anandee Banerji, were part of the team that advised the government’s Department of Investment and Public Asset Management and NTPC on the transaction.
Axis Capital Limited, Citigroup Global Markets India Private Limited, Jefferies India Private Limited and YES Securities (India) Limited were brokers to the deal.
AZB & Partners acted as Indian legal counsel to DIPAM and NTPC while Luthra & Luthra Law Offices acted as Indian legal counsel to the brokers. Herbert Smith Freehills acted as US counsel to the brokers.
Squire Patton Boggs has advised on a number of landmark transactions in India. In June 2017, the firm acted as US counsel to the State Bank of India on its Rule 144A US$2.3 billion qualified institutional placement, the largest ever qualified institutional placement equity offering in India.
In 2016 it advised on the first small finance bank IPO (US$386 million Equitas Holdings IPO; then the second largest IPO in India since 2012); the first major beverage franchisee IPO (US$175 million Varun Beverages IPO); and the highest ever subscribed IPO in India (US$60 million Quess Corp IPO, oversubscribed 147 times). In 2015, the team advised on the first IPO by an e-commerce company (Infibeam), India’s first dairy company to go public (Prabhat) and first real estate company in five years (Paranjape). It also advised on the IPO of VRL Logistics which was the highest ever subscribed IPO in India at the time. Squire Patton Boggs was awarded India Desk of the Year (International) Award (2016) by Thomson Reuters IDEX Legal Awards and was recognised Best International Capital Markets Law Firm of the Year by Legal Era in 2015-2016 and 2016-2017.
