Davis Polk & Wardwell, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Commerce & Finance Law Offices have advised Chinese Internet search giant Baidu on the sale of a third of its Nasdaq-listed shares in travel service website Ctrip for about $1 billion. Jingtian & Gongcheng and Latham & Watkins have advised the underwriters.
Baidu will remain the largest shareholder in Ctrip after the sale. According to Reuters, Baidu has lost more than a third of its market value this year and is pulling away from businesses like Ctrip to focus on building its own content ecosystem. It recently invested in science forum Guoke, and Zhihu, China’s answer to Quora.
The Davis Polk team included Beijing partner Howard Zhang and Hong Kong partner Li He. The Skadden team was led by partners Julie Gao and Haiping Li, and the Commerce & Finance team was led by partner Cui Kangkang.
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