Squire Patton Boggs has 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.
The State Bank of India is the country’s largest commercial bank. The transaction was managed by Deutsche Equities India Limited, DSP Merrill Lynch Limited, IIFL Holdings Limited, JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company Limited and SBI Capital Markets Limited.
The Squire Patton Boggs team was led by US securities partner and co-head of the firm’s India Practice Biswajit Chatterjee, assisted by senior associate Kaustubh George and associates Anandee Banerji and Gowri Reghuvaran.
Ambassador Frank Wisner, international affairs advisor at the firm, said: “We are pleased to have advised the State Bank of India on such a milestone transaction.
“To have won this mandate underlines the growth of our highly successful India practice. We have developed a high-quality inbound and outbound practice to assist Indian clients globally on legal, public policy and regulatory matters. This transaction is a mark of the depth of our experience in India and the breadth of services we offer which, we believe, sets us apart from other international firms.”
Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised as the Indian counsel to State Bank of India.
Allen & Overy and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas acted as US counsel and India counsel for the book running lead managers, respectively.
The firm has advised on a number of landmark transactions 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.