When India’s top real estate company, DLF, raised US$2.25 billion on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange at the end of June it became the country’s largest IPO. Linklaters scored the advisory role in the listing.
For the job, Linklaters assembled a team of lawyers in India, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong and the US. Arun Balasubramanian, a partner in the firm’s India group, and US associates Emily Johnson and Arwen Joyce, led the team.
“The success of the IPO demonstrates the emergence of the Indian real estate sector as a key destination for foreign institutional investment into India,” said Balasubramanian.
The successful listing boosted the net worth of DLF’s chairman KP Singh and family members, who own 97.4% of the company, to more than US$18 billion.
Before the DLF listing, India’s largest IPO was that of Britain’s Cairn Energy, which listed on the two Indian stock exchanges in December 2006 and raised US$1.4 billion.
DLF, the country’s largest real estate firm in terms of the area it has developed, first tried to make a public offer last year, but scrapped the plans amid a stock market meltdown and disputes with minority shareholders.
The company plans to spend US$1.7 billion from the IPO proceeds on the acquisition of more land and the construction of ongoing projects, DLF said in a filing with stock market regulators. The rest will be used to pay loans before they mature, it said.
