Herbies, Stibbe take on Tele Atlas global offer

Herbert Smith and alliance partner Stibbe have scooped an instruction to advise Tele Atlas on its global offer and listing on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

The €537m (£367.7m) offering is the second-largest equity offering by a European technology company since 2000.

The firms won the work thanks to their role on the €540m (£369.8m) TomTom IPO earlier in the year. TomTom, which makes in-car navigation products, is Tele Atlas's largest customer, and its listing remains the largest technology IPO in Europe and the largest IPO in the Netherlands since 2000.

Partner Derk Lemstra, who led the Stibbe team alongside Herbert Smith partner Alex Bafi, said: "With an offering size of €536.6m [£367.5m], Tele Atlas follows right behind TomTom as the second-largest deal of the year. We had the same team working on both deals. A nice double-header."

Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley acted as joint global coordinators and book- runners for the global offer, while Fortis Bank acted as lead manager. The banks were advised by Sullivan & Cromwell and Dutch firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.

In relation to the global offer, Tele Atlas also applied to list all new common shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. On completion of the global offer, Tele Atlas had a market capitalisation of approximately €1.7bn (£1.16bn).