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China News: Freshfields advises on China firm's IPO

International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has offered its legal expertise in the successful listing of a Chinese home appliance retailer at the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, a law firm providing comprehensive services to corporations, financial institutions and government, advised joint book-runners Morgan Stanley and Cazenove on the initial public offering and listing of China Paradise Electronic Retail Limited (China Paradise) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Total proceeds from the global offering were about US$152 million.

Shanghai-based China Paradise, also known as Yongle Home Appliance, is the third largest home appliance retailer in the Chinese mainland, with 151 outlets in 58 cities. The IPO will allow China Paradise to expand its network across China to better enable it to compete with other retailer chains and overseas players.

Christopher Wong, Freshfields' Beijing-based partner who led the team on this transaction, said: "The transaction was completed in a very short timeframe. We kicked off in early April, filed with the regulators in June and listed in mid-October. Everyone involved was extremely professional and we had a very enjoyable time executing this transaction, and this is what it's all about."

Freshfields' team also included Hong Kong-based associates Charles Chau and Charmaine Yip, US securities partner Tim Steinert (Hong Kong) and US securities associate Lan Jie (Beijing).

The retail tranche of China Paradise's IPO was 134 times oversubscribed, which triggered a clawback mechanism to increase the number of shares in the retail tranche to 50% of the entire global offering from the original 10%. The institutional tranche was itself very significantly oversubscribed.

Freshfields has advised on six IPO raising over US$9.6 billion in Hong Kong this year.

Freshfields has seven offices in Asia. Its Asia operations have 35 partners and more than 190 lawyers.

Its China business group is known as one of the largest and most experienced China teams of any international law firm. A number of members of the group have over 20 years experience in handling China-related advisory and transactional work across a broad range of industries.

Freshfields' China business group partners are acknowledged leaders in Chinese law as well in their respective fields of specialization, bringing a sound knowledge and leadership to the group.