Milbank Advises Pakistani Cement Manufacturer on London-Listed GDR Offering
LONDON, 24 June 2008 -- Lucky Cement Limited, Pakistan’s largest cement producer, has issued 15,000,000 global depositary receipts (GDRs), each representing four equity shares. The offering raised approximately US$109,257,000. The GDRs have been admitted to the Official List of the UK Listing Authority and have been admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s Professional Securities Market, or PSM. Milbank represented Merrill Lynch as sole underwriter in the deal, which was interrupted by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the national elections, and reached closing in choppy markets.
Tom Siebens led the Milbank team, supported by partners Anthony Root in Hong Kong and John Walker in London, with associates Randy Ali, David Gasperow and Jacqui Graham. Tax advice was provided by partners Andrew Walker in New York and Russell Jacobs in London, with associates Hairong Yu and Matthew Mortimer.
Pakistan has large surface deposits of high quality lime stone and gypsum, the key materials for cement. Over half of Lucky Cement’s output is sold abroad, delivered by trucks to customers in Afghanistan and by sea from Karachi to ports in the Gulf, India, China and Southern Africa. Lucky Cement is part of the Yunus Brothers Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Pakistan, covering a range of industries and sectors, predominantly textiles.
About Milbank
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a pre-eminent global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions in many of the world’s largest, most complex, “first-ever” corporate transactions and litigation. Our transactional expertise includes capital markets, corporate finance, project finance, acquisition finance, and other major fields of law practice. Milbank litigation teams resolve disputes involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy battles, financings and securities offerings, intellectual property, white collar crime, and corporate restructurings, among others. Our clients range from prominent multinational financial, industrial and commercial enterprises to governments, institutions and individuals. The Firm is headquartered in New York with offices in Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, DC.