Norton Rose wins latest mining IPO on London Stock Exchange

Norton Rose wins latest mining IPO on London Stock Exchange" />Norton Rose has become the latest City firm to land a mandate to advise on mining company IPOs on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

The firm is advising Kazakhmys, the world's tenth largest copper producer, on its forthcoming £2.5bn London listing. The company is the fifth major mining company to re-domicile and float on the LSE in recent years.

Kazakhmys' listing in London follows similar moves from Billiton (now BHP Billiton), Anglo American, Xstrata and Vedanta Resources, which listed in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2003 respectively.

Norton Rose, led by partner Simon Cox, was instructed to create a holding company for Kazakhmys to redomicile to the UK as part of the listing process. "The company has been trading for some time in a complicated part of the world, so it has been a major exercise," said Cox.

Norton Rose is Kazakmys' regular adviser and has advised the company on a number of deals that are not in the public domain.

The excessive compliance legislation and regulations now imposed on companies listing on the New York Stock Exchange, sparked by the Enron and WorldCom collapses, has seen a number of mining companies move to London.

One partner with experience in mining company moves told The Lawyer: "Access to the London capital markets is a major attraction. They can list and raise equity quite easily here, they have peer groups here. London is becoming the natural home for mining companies."

Linklaters, led by corporate partner Charlie Jacobs, acted for underwriters Credit Suisse and JP Morgan.