India’s capital markets partner musical chairs have continued with Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas partner Janhavi Seksaria moving down the street to AZB & Partners in Mumbai, at a time when law firms look to bolster their practices to align with India’s unprecedented stock market run in 2024.
Seksaria has over 12 years of experience advising on a spectrum of capital market deals, including initial public offerings, qualified institutional placements, rights offerings, and overseas listings.
She has particular experience in the InvITs and REIT space. Earlier this year, she advised NHAI InvIT on the $740 million issuance of its units by way of an institutional placement to eligible investors.
She also has experience in establishing & listing business trusts, infrastructure investment trusts and real estate investment trusts.
The move comes amid a rapid realignment in CAM’s capital markets practice, with various team leaders leaving through the year, and being replaced by a 50-plus lawyer team led by capital markets partner Manan Lahoty from IndusLaw.
Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co added capital markets partner Rohit Tiwari from CAM. The firm also lost two big capital markets partners, Vijay Parthasarathi and Vinay Sirohia to Trilegal in July. Abhinav Kumar, who led CAM’s capital markets practice in the western region, moved to Talwar Thakore & Associates in the same month.
AZB has also added veteran corporate lawyer from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Harini Balaji has 26 years of experience working with the securities regulator focusing on policy objectives in areas such as fund management, corporate restructuring, primary markets, listing, governance, secondary markets, and debt and hybrid securities, including InvITs and REITs.
The country’s capital markets have been one of the lucrative practice areas for Indian law firms in the last two years, as more companies than ever look to access public finance, given strong returns, comparative stability and an ongoing private capital funding winter.
This year has seen records broken in both number and size of public funding deals, with a host of law firms, domestic and international, benefitting from the fast-growing market.
SAM and Latham & Watkins are advising Hyundai Motor's India unit on its upcoming IPO, which could raise up to $3 billion – India’s biggest IPO to date.
CAM, AZB, S&R Associates and Sidley Austin guided Vodafone Idea’s $2.15 billion further public offering, the largest successful Indian FPO and the third-largest offering of public equity shares in India.
CAM, Khaitan and Linklaters advised on Vedanta’s $1 billion qualified institutions placement, the largest QIP this year and the largest equity raise through a QIP route in India’s metals and mining sector.
