Cleary and Linklaters lead on $7bn Russian eurobond deal

Cleary advised the Russian Federation on the multibillion dollar deal, which was completed on Wednesday and is structured in three tranches. The deal will see the Russian government issue $3bn (£1.9bn) in 30-year paper, $2bn (£1.3bn) in 10-year paper and $2bn (£1.3bn) in five-year paper.

The Cleary team was led by London-based partners David Gottlieb and David Sabel, who are both long-standing advisers to the Russian Federation, alongside Moscow-based associates Christopher Smith, Sergey Vasiliev, Alexander Popov and London-based trainee Alice Pillar.

Linklaters represented the lead arrangers in the deal and fielded a team consisting of London partner Cecil Quillen and Moscow-based partners Dmitry Dobatkin and Andy Burge, as well as associates Jonathan Lewis and Adilya Taktashova.

The $7bn deal, which was oversubscribed, beat the record last set in April 2010 when the Russian Federation raised $5.5bn in a similar offering. Both Cleary and Linklaters were retained in identical roles on that deal, with Cleary advising the Russian government and Linklaters advising the underwriters.

According to data from Thomson Reuters, the eurobond deal is the largest by an emerging markets sovereign since 2000. Cleary also scooped a lead role in one of the other largest bond deals to hit the emerging markets in recent months when Brazilian oil giant Petrobras raised a $7bn bond issue in February (3 February 2012).

Commenting on the deal, Cleary partner David Gottlieb told The Lawyer:

“I think the success of the deal is interesting in contrast to the sovereign debt crisis facing the developed world. We expect the transaction to pave the way for many Russian corporates to return to the international debt markets after a hiatus.”

As revealed by The Lawyer earlier this week, both Linklaters and Cleary have acted on a large number of the Russian IPOs on the London Stock Exchange over the past few years (2 April 2012).