During last night's Capital Markets Awards Gala, the Romanian Brokers' Association granted Clifford Chance Badea the Award for Legal Advisory provided on the dual listing of shares and GDRs by Romgaz, the largest natural-gas producer in Romania, on the Bucharest and London stock exchanges.
"We are honoured to have been part of a deal that made history for the Romanian Capital Market," said Madalina Rachieru, Counsel within the Capital Markets practice area of Clifford Chance Badea. "This was the country’s largest initial public offering and the first IPO of a state-owned company done at international standards. Clifford Chance Badea was involved in all the stages of the deal, from due diligence and drafting of the prospectus to the drafting and negotiation of the transaction documents.”
The Firm had a lead team of 10 – 12 Romanian, English and American lawyers that were coordinated by 3 partners from the Bucharest and London offices (Daniel Badea on Romanian law, Adrian Cartwright on English law and Bob Trefny on American law, respectively). At times, when the deal's intensity peaked, the team grew to up to 25 lawyers. The entire process was directly coordinated by Madalina Rachieru, Counsel and Radu Ropota, Senior Associate.
Daniel Badea, Managing Partner of Clifford Chance Badea, added: "This award acknowledges the performance of a very active capital markets team. For three years in a row now, the international guide IFLR 1000 has ranked Clifford Chance Badea as a Tier 1 law firm for its Banking & Capital Markets practice. We were involved in virtually all the major capital markets transactions in Romania, which stand for best practices examples at international standards. The recent successful IPO has placed Romania on the international investors' roadmap and is a window of opportunity that I hope the capital market, the business environment and the public sector in Romania will benefit from.”
The Capital Markets practice of Clifford Chance Badea includes ten lawyers and is coordinated by Madalina Rachieru. Usually, the team provides legal assistance to underwriting syndicates, but it has a similarly strong experience in assisting issuers as well.
The Clifford Chance Badea Capital Market experience includes:
• Assistance to the consortium made up of Goldman Sachs, Erste Bank, Banca Comerciala Romana and Raiffeisen Capital & Investment in relation to the dual listing of shares and GDRs by Romgaz S.A., the largest natural-gas producer in Romania, on the Bucharest and London stock exchanges;
• The first corporate bonds issues (Raiffeisen Bank and Finansbank in 2004 – 2005);
• The issue of GDRs by Vimetco (the shareholder of Alro) on the London Stock Exchange;
• BCR's Eurobonds issue in 2002-2003 and the establishment of BCR's MTN Programme (the first EMTN Programme in Romania) listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange;
• The Teraplast listing;
• Advising UniCredit in relation to the domestic €122 million bonds issue successfully closed and listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange - the largest ever launched in Romania;
• JPMorgan Securities, Morgan Stanley Bank and Erste Group Bank as bookrunners in connection with the launch by Erste of a €660 million share sale, in July 2013;
• Ciech, the largest chemicals producer in Central and Eastern Europe and shareholder of Uzinele Sodice Govora, on its international bonds issue in the US;
• Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Citibank in connection with the US$2.25 billion Romania's dollar sovereign bond debut issue made under the €7 billion MTN programme (also implemented by Clifford Chance in 2011); Clifford Chance was the lead legal advisor (and, in some cases, the sole legal advisor) on all the Romanian bond issues, including for the establishment of the MTN Programme worth more than €7 billion.
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Clifford Chance has been present in Romania since 2006 and operates now as Clifford Chance Badea, being the only fully-integrated Magic Circle firm in Romania.
The Bucharest office has 3 partners (Daniel Badea - Managing Partner, Nadia Badea and Perry Zizzi) supported by an international team of 45 fee earners. Clifford Chance Badea is frequently involved in complex transactions such as syndicated loans, project finance, restructurings, Eurobonds and shares issues on international capital markets, derivatives, companies' acquisitions by strategic investors or private equity funds, infrastructure and motorway projects, real estate investments, etc., as well as domestic and international litigation and arbitration.
Clifford Chance Badea ranks first among law firms in Romania under the section of Banking & Finance in the most recent editions of Legal500 and Chambers Global, and is a Tier 1 firm under Banking, Capital Markets and Project Finance practices according to the latest issue of IFLR1000 directory.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
1. Clifford Chance is one of the world's pre-eminent law firms with significant depth and range of resources across five continents. As a single, fully integrated, global partnership, we pride ourselves on our approachable, collegiate and team based way of working. We always strive to exceed the expectations of our clients, which include corporates from all the commercial and industrial sectors, governments, regulators, trade bodies and not for profit organisations. We provide them with the highest quality advice and legal insight, which combines the Firm's global standards with in-depth local expertise.
2. Clifford Chance was ranked 'tier one' in more cross-border tables than any other firm in the Chambers Global 2013 Directory. This independent analysis focuses on firms' legal ability, professional conduct, client service, and commercial awareness, and these rankings provide outstanding recognition for the Firm's breadth of expertise and consistency of quality across global markets.
For further information about Clifford Chance see www.cliffordchance.com.
For further information about this release contact Ana-Maria Gavrilă, Head of Communications
on +40 756 012 264 or by email at ana.gavrila@cliffordchance.com.
