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Note: The record-breaking initial public offering of Reliance Power, a subsidiary of India's second-largest private sector power company, not only made headlines but proved to be an extremely challenging but rewarding job for the law firm involved. By Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff & Co, legal advisers to the Issuer
Reliance Power Limited, part of the Reliance ADA Group, recently concluded its initial public offering (IPO) of a size of over Rs115 billion (approximately US$3 billion) in January and February 2008. This was the largest ever Indian public offering as of that date.
Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co was approached by Reliance Power to act as their sole counsel for the transaction. The firm commenced work in late August 2007 and was required to file the document with the regulators within a month of commencing work, as is typically expected of all Reliance Group deals. Thus started the journey of a typical capital markets transaction, only now, it had to be completed within four weeks, as opposed to similar transactions which typically take more than two months! What made matters difficult was that Reliance Power was a new company with ambitious plans on a business execution level and a significant amount of work was required to prepare the Company for its IPO. The business of Reliance Power consisted of 13 small and large power projects in its portfolio with a planned capacity of 28,000 megawatts, all in the initial stages of development. Due diligence of the documentation of such a large portfolio of projects, including establishing clear...