Amarchand, Latham bond over $1.7bn Vedanta offering

Big DollarsAmarchand Mangaldas and Latham Watkins advised London-listed mining giant Vedanta Resources in its $1.7bn (Rs 9630 crore) dual tranche bond offering – the largest ever by an Indian corporate. Amarchand also advised the joint book runners.

Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi capital markets partner Prashant Gupta, principal associate designate Monal Mukherjee, senior associates Agnik Bhattacharyya and Shatarupa Dasgupta and senior associate designate Apurva Rai acted for Vedanta and the book runners – Barclays Bank, Citigroup Global Markets, J.P. Morgan Securities, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner Smith, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank AG Singapore.

Amarchand performed due diligence and reviewed and prepared sections in the preliminary offering circular, the offering circular and the subscription agreement for Vedanta’s Indian subsidiaries: Sterlite Industries (India), Madras Aluminium, Bharat Aluminium, Sterlite Energy, Vedanta Aluminium, Hindustan Zinc, Sesa Goa, Sesa Resources, Cairn India and Talwandi Sabo, according to the firm’s press release.

Latham Singapore partners Rajiv Gupta and Timothy Hia, Hong Kong partner David Miles and London partner Lene Malthasen acted for Vedanta on non-Indian law.

The offering comprised of $1.2bn 6 per cent bonds due 2019 and $500m 7.125 per cent bonds due 2023.

The offering was made to refinance the November 2010 $3.5m term loan that Vedanta availed to finance its December 2011 acquisition of Cairn India, on which Amarchand and Luthra Luthra had acted. The acquisition was cleared by the Supreme Court last month, Mint reported.

The offering was also one of the largest order-book sizes for an Indian issuer in excess of $10bn, reported the PTI. The bonds were offered and sold in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers outside the United States.

The $1.7bn overseas bond offering lifted the total amount of funds raised through foreign bonds to $11bn this year, according to the Financial Express.

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Amarchand, Latham bond over $1.7bn Vedanta offering