A&O battles Linklaters on Singapore MTN deals

Allen & Overy (A&O) is launching a battle with Linklaters & Alliance in Singapore to handle domestic medium-term note (MTN) programmes under Singapore law.

Linklaters' joint venture partner in Singapore Allen & Gledhill dominates the market for domestic MTN deals.

But A&O has acted for the first time on the establishment of a purely domestic MTN programme governed by Singapore law. It has only been able to do these deals locally since setting up its joint venture with Shook Lin & Bok last year (The Lawyer, 17 July 2000).

A team made up of both Shook Lin and A&O lawyers advised HSBC as dealer, arranger and issuing and paying agent on the establishment of a S$200m (£76.6m) MTN programme for GP Industries.

The deal was led jointly by A&O partner Glenn Butt and Shook Lin partner Antony Lee. They took the international documentation and adapted it to the local market.

After establishing the programme the team then advised on the first drawdown off the programme, a S$50m (£19.2m) fixed rate note issue.

Butt says: "A&O has an international reputation in this area and we have been trying to get in on the domestic side. Even though we're the number one MTN firm globally we aren't here, but we are focusing on our domestic capital markets practice and we want to be a house that is thought of to handle domestic deals."