AZB & Partners
S&R Associates has landed the $9.6bn corporate takeover of long-groomed client Cairns India by UK mining giant Vedanta Resources, which was advised by AZB & Partners as Scottish firm Shepherd and Wedderburn and US firm Latham & Watkins stepped up internationally.
Amarchand, Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co and Trilegal have all ramped up their basic starter pay above Rs 10 lakhs, with offered packages including bonuses now running up to Rs 15 lakh at the top end.
Two offices of AZB & Partners acted on opposite sides of a Chinese Wall for private equity investor Matrix India and gold loan company Muthoot Finance in a 4 per cent investment totalling Rs 157 crore with Luthra & Luthra advising second investor Baring Private Equity Partners India.
AZB & Partners advised Japanese steel giant JFE that bought 14.9 per cent for $1.02bn in India's third largest steel maker JSW, which was advised by Amarchand Mangaldas.
Luthra & Luthra was the most active project finance legal advisers both by value and volume in the first half of 2010, followed by India Law Services, SJ Law Advocates & Solicitors, Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners and SN Gupta & Co, according to data compiled for Legally India by data provider Dealogic.
According to data provider mergermarket's latest league table, AZB & Partners was the busiest M&A law firm with 38 deals to its credit in the first half of 2010, followed by Amarchand Mangaldas and Desai & Diwanji in second and third places respectively, with a total of 14 deals each.
AZB & Partners advised close client Tata Power in raising $300m by selling up to 15 per cent in two of its Indonesian coal-assets-owning special purpose vehicles (SPVs) Bhira Investments and Bhivpuri Investments to private equity house Olympus Capital Holdings Asia, which Desai & Diwanji and US firms Milbank Tweed and Purrington Moody Weil advised.
Amarchand Mangaldas acted on more than half of the total number of Qualified Institutional Placements (QIPs) in Legally India's QIP League Table of the 2009-2010 fiscal year. AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co were the second-busiest followed by J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Crawford Bayley and S&R Associates amongst domestic firms.
International firm Jones Day bagged the maximum QIPs out of foreign law firms acting for the book running lead managers while Linklaters, Dorsey & Whitney and Clifford Chance also won mandates on a significant numbers of fundraisings.
AZB & Partners was the busiest Indian M&A firm in the months of April and May advising on a total of seven takeovers, followed by Trilegal and Amarchand Mangaldas but foreign firms picked up by far the greatest slice of Indian M&A mega-value deals benefiting from increasing Indian outbound activity.
Amarchand Mangaldas Bangalore advised Kalanithi Maran on his Rs 740 crore purchase of Link Legal-advised low-cost carrier SpiceJet from two sellers, which were represented by AZB Mumbai and Naveen Goel Law Offices in Delhi.
AZB & Partners, Trilegal, Wadia Ghandy and legal process outsourcing (LPO) company Pangea3 have hiked their basic starting salary packages to as high as Rs 11.4 lakh per year, which makes AZB as the top-paying legal recruiter in Legally India's new law firm salary table.
Amarchand Mangaldas was the busiest IPO law firm in Legally India's 2009-10 financial year (FY) league table by far but the newer practices Luthra & Luthra, S&R Associates, AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co have managed to keep pace in bank advisory work bagging nearly as many instructions.