AZB & Partners
HSA Advocates advised Invest India Micro Pension Services (IIMPS) and its promoters in raising funds from German promotional bank KfW for a 30 per cent stake in IIMPS. KfW was advised by its in house legal team.
AZB & Partners partner Hardeep Sachdeva advised the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, which is one of the shareholder’s in IIMPS, alongside UTI Asset Management and SEWA.
HSA partner Harvinder Singh and senior associate Sumedha Dutta acted for IIMPS, which distributes financial services to lower income groups, including savings schemes for old age.
AZB & Partners dropped off data provider Merger Market’s half-yearly (H1) M&A league table despite reporting 21 deals – the highest among India’s top ten law firms.
Amarchand Mangaldas advised State Bank of India (SBI), SBI Trustee and SBI AMC in buying Japan’s second-largest brokerage group Daiwa Security Group’s Daiwa Mutual Fund. Daiwa was advised by AZB & Partners. SBI will buy the Japanese fund for more than Rs 1.3 crore ($220,000), reports Mint.
Amarchand Mangaldas Mumbai corporate partners Ashwath Rau and Aysswarya Murthi acted for the buyers, which will acquire Daiwa’s sponsorship, trusteeship and management.AZB & Partners Mumbai partner Alka Nalavadi and associate Rushabh Maniar acted for Daiwa Asset Management Company’s Indian and Japanese arms and Daiwa Trustee Company.
Daiwai Mutual Fund is selling out to SBI because it wants to cut costs and jobs outside Japan, and because India poses regulatory uncertainties, waning retail investor interest in equity markets, wafer-thin margins and a highly competitive environment, reported the Times of India.
Rachit Bahl, Nandita Govind and Ritika Rathi make salaried partner Delhi; Nilanjana Singh, Nandish Vyas confirmed in Mumbai.
Baring Private Equity Asia is set to take a minority stake in cement maker Lafarge India for $265m (Rs 1400 crore), with three domestic firms and two foreign law firms advising on the deal.
Lafarge was represented domestically by AZB & Partners on law and BMR & Associates on tax issues, with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton advising on non-Indian laws. AZB fielded Mumbai partner Essaji Vahanvati, BMR led with partner Kalpesh Desai. Clearys’ team consisted of Paris partner Pierre-Yves Chabert and associate Charles Masson.
Baring drafted in Wadia Ghandy Bangalore partner Ankit Majmudar and Allen & Overy (A&O) Paris partner Frederic Jungels.
Baring will subscribe to 200 million Euros of shares in a Lafarge subsidiary, giving the private equity house a 14 per cent stake, according to a press release from Cleary. The deal is slated as the largest in the private equity space in India so far this year, according to the WSJ.
Seth Dua advised the Builders Association of India (BAI) in the Competition Appellate Tribunal against 11 cement companies.
Amarchand has emerged as the most aggressive Indian early recruiter hiring 36 fourth-year law students across 10 colleges.
25 Nalsarites accept jobs at six firms.
NLSIU Bangalore placed 24 out of 80 fourth year students on 20 April 2013 including 11 pre-placement offers(PPOs). Two independent offers from McKinsey & Co were made in addition to those.
A total of 21 ‘day zero’ campus offers to start work in 2014 came from law firms Luthra & Luthra (8 campus offers), Trilegal (5), Amarchand Mangaldas (4), AZB & Partners (2), and Khaitan & Co (2), according to legal website Bar & Bench, with AZB and Khaitan having recruited entirely through PPOs.
A total of 50 students who had subscribed to the college placement process. Students have also secured three London internships each with Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith Freehills. NLSIU’s RCC has not been reachable for comment by Legally India.
NLU Jodhpur’s day zero was four days before NlSIU’s on 16 April, placing 14 students.
The incumbents continued their rule in the consultancy’s 2013 ranking of law firms, while the ecosystem as a whole has widened.
AZB & Simpsons reprised roles for KKR, with Amarchand and Davis Polk acting for the sellers.
AZB & Partners did the greatest number of deals (13) in the first quarter of this year, according to the mergermarket M&A deal rankings.
Selection process at firm still continuing.
NDR + AZB alum MG = new national firm Samvad Partners.
6 deals spanning private equity and high finance with Amarchand, AZB, Lexygen, Luthra, KSP, SNG…
J Sagar Associates (JSA) and DLA Piper advised multinational certification services firm Bureau Veritas (BV), which will buy Indian and middle-eastern industrial-testing firm Sievert.
Sievert was advised by AZB & Partners Bangalore partner Srinath Dasari, senior associate Nanditha Gopal, and associate Veena Ganesh.
JSA Mumbai partner Sandeep Mehta with associates Aarti Iyer and Adil Ladha, and DLA Piper Middle East regional managing partner Abdul Aziz Al-Yaqout, legal director Diwakar Agarwal and associate Zara Merali acted for BV which will likely complete the acquisition in May 2013, according to its press release.
Sievert reported revenue of $33m in 2012, according to BV, and is engaged in the testing, inspection and certification using non-destructive technique businesses in India and the Middle East.
We know what Desai & Diwanji, HSA Advocates, I&S Associates, AZB & Partners, Fox Mandal and KS Partners and others did this month.
Majmudar & Partners and US law firm Kim Law Advisors advised San Francisco’s Burill & Company in its Rs 54 crore ($10m) primary and secondary investment in the Trilegal-advised Bangalore-based Strand Life Sciences, including buying out its lead investors WestBridge Capital and Ascent Capital. WestBridge was advised by AZB & Partners.
Majmudar Bangalore partner N Raja Sujith acted for Burill which is a diversified global financial services firm focussed on the life sciences sector.
Trilegal Bangalore partner Kosturi Ghosh acted for Strand in what Biospectrum Asia reported was a series B financing by Burill.
AZB & Partners Bangalore partner Srinath Dasari acted for WestBridge – a series A lead investor in Strand, which according to Startup Central had picked up a 20 per cent stake in the company for a reported $1.9m in 2002.
AZB & Partners advised India-focused infrastructure fund Macquarie SBI in its Rs 206 crore ($40m) buy of 74 per cent equity in the GMR group’s road project GMR Jadcherla Expressways (GJEL). GMR was advised by Link Legal.
AZB & Partners Mumbai co-founding partner Bahram Vakil, with senior associate Qais Jamal, acted for Macquarie SBI, which expanded its road portfolio. Macquarie SBI had two years ago invested in GMR infrastructure’s airport subsidiary, as reported in Mint at the time.
Link Legal Delhi corporate partner Anand Srivastava and senior associate Milind Jha acted for the GMR group, which is operating the Farukhnagar-Jadcherla highway in Andhra Pradesh under a concession agreement signed with the National Highway Authority of India, according to a GMR press release.