美国国际集团(AIG)旗下友邦保险近日正式启动备受关注的公开招股，将于29日挂牌，计划集资约200亿美元。除金杜、富而德以及德普三家大所任发行人律师外，还有多家亚洲律所也为此上市项目提供过了法律意见和服务。由于友邦服务和业务范围遍及亚太区内15个地区市场，该公司需要得到这些地区市场本地律师事务所的法律支持，尤其在房地产产权评估以及尽职调查方面。这些为友邦提供服务的亚洲地方律所包括印度尼西亚律所Soewito Suhardiman Eddymurthy Kardono，马来西亚律所Skrine 以及菲律宾律所Romulo Mabanta。
AIA Group, a leading life insurance organisation in the Asia-Pacific region, kicked off its highly anticipated Hong Kong IPO yesterday. The IPO, which is expected to raise up to US$20.5bn, will see two international firms - Freshfields and Debevoise & Plimpton - taking home a good-sized pay check for their legal services as the international advisors to the issuer. King & Wood has also secured an important role in this IPO as the PRC counsel to the issuer, which is the only foreign life insurer to own all of its mainland operations.
However, as AIA Group has businesses and operations in 15 markets in the region, including PRC, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, its mega IPO has also required legal services from a large number of local firms in these jurisdictions.
In the words of Zhao Xiaohong, a partner of King & Wood in Shanghai (who is not involved in this transaction), as long as multinational companies have extensive businesses in Asia, they will definitely need local legal opinion and support from all the countries they operate in for their global IPO.
In the lead-up to the IPO, AIA has sought legal services from Indonesian firm Soewito Suhardiman Eddymurthy Kardono, Malaysian firm Skrine and Philippines firm Romulo Mabanta, to name just a few.
Sullivan & Cromwell and Linklaters have also been engaged in the IPO, acting for the joint lead underwriters - Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
AIA is scheduled to start trading on 29 October. If the listing successfully raises the targeted amount of US$20.5bn, it will be the second-largest global IPO in 2010 and the largest ever on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
US firm Debevoise has also been working closely with American International Group (AIG) and has represented the company on several Asian-focused deals including the proposed sale of AIA and its Taiwan life insurance unit, Nan Shan. One of the lead partners in these transactions, Drew Dutton, has recently relocated to Hong Kong from Paris, in a strategic move to strengthen the firm's Hong Kong office. ALB