Capital Markets

In November Amarchand Mangaldas' Bangalore office bagged a role in four out of six initial public offerings (IPOs), and together with one instruction from Delhi has extended its lead in the top spot of the IPO league tables over Khaitan & Co, Luthra & Luthra and AZB & Partners.

Amarchand Mangaldas acted on three mandates for companies and two for the underwriting banks.

The firm's Delhi office acted as corporate counsel for Sterlite Energy and as sole legal adviser in the PNC Infratech IPO.

However, Amarchand's Bangalore office saw the majority of instructions, with capital markets partner Arjun Lall leading the company four IPOs in November.

Lall was sole adviser in the IPO of Infrasoft Technologies, which is the owner of 123greetings.com, and also acted in the IPO of Bangalore Infrasoft Technologies and advising the banks in the IPOs of Bangalore Nitesh Estates, Prestige Estates Projects and Rural Electrification Corporation.

AZB's Bangalore office acted opposite Amarchand as company counsel on Bangalore realty firm Prestige Estates Projects' IPO, which is hoped to raise Rs 1,200 crores. Capital markets partner Srinath Dasari led the AZB team.

Dasari said that the Southern IPO market was buoyant. "I think we have a strong pipeline of South Indian companies trying to tap the public markets in the next six to nine months; Prestige is one of them."

"We used to see capital markets solely out of Bombay but especially that has changed," explained Dasari. "Bangalore is a platform for launching into the South Indian market - we have seen Cochin, which is rare but does happen, and Chennai and Hyderabad."

"I don't see that trend declining any time soon," he added.

AZB's best friend Clifford Chance acted as international counsel on the Prestige deal.

Sterlite Energy saw S&R Associates and Latham and Watkins Singapore advising lead managers domestically and internationally respectively, opposite Amarchand. Sterlite energy is a power generation and distribution company and hopes to raise Rs 5,100 crores from its IPO.

Meanwhile, the Kolkata office of Khaitan & Co bagged the IPO of Everest Infra Energy that manufactures electrical equipments and infrastructure.

In the November rankings, Udwadia & Udeshi was the only new entrant after advising real estate company Nitesh Estates in its Rs 450 crores plus Rs 45 crores greenshoe IPO. Duo Amarchand and Jones Day Singapore were the law firms for lead managers in this issue.

In December so far, Luthra & Luthra has picked up two IPO mandates for Jaypee Infratech and Rural Electrification Corporation, with Crawford Bayley and Amarchand respectively also acting in each deal.

IPO legal adviser rankings 1 April - 30 November 2009

	Firm	Total mandates (+Nov 09 mandates)	Company mandates	Underwriter mandates
1	Amarchand Mangaldas	23 (+5)	16 (+3)	7 (+2)
2	Khaitan & Co	8 (+1)	5 (+1)	3
3	Luthra & Luthra	7	4	3
4	Dorsey & Whitney	6	-	6
4	Jones Day	6 (+1)	-	6 (+1)
6	AZB & Partners	5 (+1)	2 (+1)	3
6	S&R Associates	5 (+1)	1	4 (+1)
8	Clifford Chance	4	-	4 (+1)
9=	Rajani Associates	3	3	-
9=	Vaish Associates	3	3	-
11	Crawford Bayley	3	2	1
11	Linklaters	3	-	3
13	J Sagar Associates (JSA)	2	2	-
13	JurisPrudent Consulting Partners	2	2	-
13	Kanga & Co	2	2	-

Methodology: legal advisers to all draft prospectuses filed with SEBI in the period 1 April - 30 November 2009. Ranked by total mandates, followed by company mandates.

Four IPOs have been filed since December to date, which were not included in these November rankings. They will be updated in January.

Click here for the rankings for the first half of the financial year.