Davis Polk & Wardwell, Norton Rose, and Slaughter and May have landed leading roles on Jupiter Asset Management’s proposed £1bn IPO.
The Norton Rose team advising Jupiter on the transaction is being led by corporate finance partners Simon Sackman and Julian Stanier. Fellow corporate finance partners Chris Grieves - one of four London partners made up in this year’s promotion round - and Tom Vita are also acting for Jupiter, the latter on the US aspects of the deal.
Davis Polk and Slaughters are acting for underwriters JPMorgan and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
London corporate partner Jeffrey Oakes led for Davis Polk advising on US aspects, alongside tax partner John Paton. Slaughters acted on UK law, with Martin Hattrell leading the team.
The deal is still at the marketing stage, but the listing could be up to four times the value of last year’s £250m flotation of rival fund management group Gartmore, for which Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer provided advice.
Norton Rose is advising on two other potential IPOs, totalling north of £5bn.
Corporate finance partner Simon Cox is acting for Brazilian mining company Ferrous Resources on its £2.8bn listing, while Vita is taking the lead for the firm on a $3.6bn (£2.5bn) flotation of Polish power group Tauron.
Corporate finance partner Mark Lloyd Williams, who is co-ordinating work across all three transactions, said: “These deals will act as a bellwether for whether the markets are open for IPOs. It’s an uncertain market and if they do get away it’d be good news.
“What’s interesting is that people are sticking their head above the parapet and having a go.”
