Essar goes to London Freshfields; Linklaters Amarchand, Talwar Thakore advise

The Ruia family owned Essar Energy, the petroleum and oil arm of the Essar Group is planning to raise approximately $2.5 billion (Rs. 11,000 crore) through the listing of its shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE)..If Essar Energy is successful in listing its shares on the LSE, it would be the largest overseas listing by an Indian company, dwarfing even Vedanta Resources’ $825 million (Rs. 3,600 crore) listing back in 2003..Essar is planning to use the funds raised from the listing to develop its oil and natural gas production facilities and also increase its power generating capacity over the coming years..It is understood that Essar and the investment banks, Deutsche and JPMorgan are being advised by Magic circle law firms Freshfields and Linklaters, respectively. The Freshfields team advising Essar is led by Corporate partners, Stuart Grider and Neil Radford. Deutsche and JPMorgan are being advised by the Linklaters team headed by Corporate partners Robert Cleaver and Charlie Jacobs and Capital markets partner Patrick Sheil..The Indian legal aspects of this complex deal are being handled by teams from Amarchand Mangaldas (advising Essar) and Talwar Thakore & Associates (advising the investment banks). This will be the second big ticket capital markets deal this year, the first being the Standard Chartered IDR offering, on which the best friend firms Linklaters and Talwar Thakore & Associates have worked together.