Travers Smith has advised Hellman & Friedman portfolio company Hostelworld on its £177m listing on the main market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), with Herbert Smith Freehills and Irish firm McCann FitzGerald also working on the flotation.
Online booking platform Hostelworld turned to Travers Smith corporate finance partner Adrian West and private equity head Paul Dolman, while partner Kathleen Russ worked on tax elements of the transaction.
As the Dublin headquartered company is also planning to list on the Irish Stock Exchange, it called upon McCann FitzGerald partner Aidan Lawlor to handle Irish aspects of the IPO.
The banks acting on the deal, namely UK sponsor Numis Securities and Irish sponsor J&E Davy, were represented by Herbert Smith Freehills partners Chris Haynes and Steve Thierbach. The duo are soon due to join Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.
The listing is expected to raise £125.4m, with Hellman & Friendman due to hold approximately 19.8 per cent of the company’s issued ordinary share capital.
Background to the deal
Hostelworld was established in 1999 but was bought by Hellman & Friedman 10 years later, as part of its wider acquisition of Web Reservations.
At the time Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer acted for the private equity firm, but Travers has since taken on many deals for Hellman, with Dolman acting on its acquisition of Hostelbookers in 2013. He also advised on its sale of insurance technology business SSP in a secondary buy-out earlier this year.
Travers Smith was introduced to Hellman & Friedman via its European GC Stuart Banks who trained at the firm from 1998 to 2000. Banks also worked as a senior associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton before moving in-house, with the US firm acting on Hellman’s joint acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ investment management unit and Gartmore Group’s IPO.
