Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Paul Hastings, Kim & Chang and Shin & Kim have scored lead advisory roles on Samsung SDS Co’s $1.1 billion IPO on the Korea Exchange on Nov. 14.
The listing of SDS, the IT services arm of the Samsung Group, was South Korea’s largest since May 2010, and will be followed by the expected $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion December IPO of the Samsung Group’s de facto holding company, Cheil Industries Inc.
The IT services firm became the fifth-most valuable company on the South Korean bourse with a market capitalisation of about $26 billion as of Nov. 14’s debut.
Cleary Gottlieb, led by Seoul partner Yong Guk Lee, and Kim & Chang advised SDS on the listing.
Paul Hastings advised the underwriters – Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Securities and Korea Investment & Securities Co – on the transaction, led by partners Dong Chul Kim and Daniel Sae-Chin Kim in Seoul, with assistance from partner Steven Winegar in Hong Kong.
Shin & Kim provided Korean legal advice to the banks.
SDS is 19.05 percent owned by the three children of Samsung Electronics Co Chairman Lee Kun-hee, 72, who has been hospitalised since suffering a heart attack in May.
While the children did not sell any of their shares in SDS’s $1.1 billion initial public offering, analysts said the listing put a value on their holdings and would free up cash to pay inheritance taxes or increase holdings in group companies.
Also, just 7.9 percent of SDS shares were sold in the IPO, creating a scarcity premium for what is expected to become a key constituent of Seoul’s main Kospi index.
SDS, which also provides logistics services, generates about 80 percent of its sales from group affiliates, including about 65 percent from Samsung Electronics and its subsidiaries.
