Latham & Watkins Advises on 11 Groundbreaking Deals in Asia

Latham & Watkins advised on seven award-winning deals and four honorable mention transactions in Asian-MENA Counsel’s 2017 “Deals of the Year” awards. The groundbreaking deals won recognition for “push[ing] the boundaries in terms of sophistication, innovation and complexity, and which opened new markets.” 

Latham advised on a number of landmark deals in Asia spanning M&A, banking, capital markets, and project finance. The winning deals included:

• ReNew's Neerg Energy US$475 million high-yield note offering, with Asian-MENA Counsel stating: “the Neerg Energy deal involved some innovative structuring that allowed ReNew to raise financing from the US dollar bond market through the placement of rupee-denominated masala bonds.” Latham represented the issuer and guarantors. 
• Paiton Energy’s coal-fired power plant debt refinancing, which Asian-MENA Counsel signaled out as “the first Asian infrastructure project since 2000 to succeed in raising money from the capital markets in August when it issued US$2 billion of project bonds as part of a debt refinancing.” Latham represented the trustee, agents and the exiting ECA lenders.
• ThaiBev's “landmark” acquisition of Myanmar Distillery, that Asian-MENA Counsel called out as “one of the largest M&A transactions in Myanmar to date.” Latham represented TPG as a seller in this transaction.
• Bumi Resources “epic” restructuring, which Asian-MENA Counsel said “was one of the largest and most complex debt restructuring deals in Southeast Asia since the Asian financial crisis in 1997.” The magazine added: “With US$4.5 billion of restructured debt, this cross-border deal straddled complex, multijurisdictional legal, tax and business issues across Singapore, Indonesia, China, the US, UK, Mauritius, the Seychelles and the Cayman Islands. It was also complex, involving the exchange of three international bond issuances and loans with the China Investment Corporation and China Development Bank, in addition to six other syndicated bank loans.” Latham represented a group of syndicated lenders.
• Azure Power high-yield green bonds; Latham represented the joint coordinators and bookrunners in this US$500 million offering, the first to be offered by an Indian company with only solar assets.
• Chandra Asri Petrochemical's rights issue and offering; Latham represented the initial purchasers and bookrunners on the US$372 million rights issuance and the underwriters on the US$300 milion notes offering.
• MakeMyTrip's acquisition of ibibo group, the largest M&A deal in India’s travel sector in 2017. Latham represented MakeMyTrip. 

The firm also advised on a number of high profile transactions that received honorable mentions, including:

• Vedanta's any-or-all tender offer and high-yield bond; Latham represented the issuer in its issue of US$1billion high yield bonds. This was the largest single tranche G3 high yield bond issuance by an Indian company since 2015. 
• Gulf Energy Development’s IPO; Latham represented the international bookrunners and Thai underwriters in this significant listing, which was one of the largest corporate IPOs in Thailand in over a decade.
• Nord Anglia Education’s privatization; Latham represented New York-listed Nord Anglia Education Inc. in the US$4.3 billion take-private by a consortium led by the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board and Baring Private Equity Asia. Latham also acted for Baring and the CPPIB consortium on the financing for the acquisition.
• Cirebon 2 power plant expansion project; Latham represented the project sponsors on the US$1.74 billion expansion, one of the largest-ever power plant expansions in Asia.