$25.5 million in legal fees: The law firms behind SpaceX’s $75 billion IPO

SpaceX’s $75 billion initial public offering (IPO) went through without the company naming a General Counsel in its filings.

SpaceX disclosed legal fees and expenses of $25.5 million in connection with the offering. This translates to approximately ₹240.9 crore at present exchange rates.

The figure is a combined amount for legal fees and expenses and does not disclose how much was paid to each law firm.

The IPO involved the sale of 555.6 million shares of Class A common stock at $135 per share, raising around $75 billion. The shares were listed on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the symbol SPCX.

The offering valued Elon Musk-led SpaceX at around $1.78 trillion.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP served as lead counsel to SpaceX on the IPO and listing. The Gibson Dunn team was led by partners Hillary Holmes, Harrison Tucker and Atma Kabad. Other partners who advised on the transaction included Julia Lapitskaya, Gerry Spedale, Thomas Kim, Brian Lane, Osman Nawaz, Mellissa Campbell Duru, Alan Bannister, Collin Cox, Gina Hancock, Krista Hanvey, George Sampas, Rob Little, Chris Trester, Cassandra Gaedt-Sheckter, Vivek Mohan, Frances Waldmann, Madalyn Miller, Matthew Axelrod, Lindsay Paulin, Michael Murphy, Bradley Smith, Brian Lutz, Stephanie Brooker, Michael Cannon, Eric Sloan, Steve Thierbach, Michelle Kirschner, Chris Haynes, Benjamin Fryer, Armando Albarrán and Ferdinand Fromholzer.

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP acted as counsel to the underwriters on US law. The Davis Polk capital markets team included partners Byron B Rooney, Stephen A Byeff and Alan F Denenberg. Other partners who advised on the transaction included Sanders Witkow, Christopher Kodama, Will Pearce, Pritesh P Shah, Matthew J. Bacal and Adam Kaminsky.

The offering also had a major European retail component.

The prospectus stated that $4 million of the total legal fees and expenses was attributable to the European retail offering. This works out to around ₹37.8 crore.

Freshfields advised SpaceX as European lead counsel on the EU part of the global offering. The Freshfields team was led by partners Christoph Gleske and Daniel von Bülow. Other partners included John Sichelschmidt, John Haviland, Vincent Buchta and Lorenzo Paganetti.

Latham & Watkins advised the underwriting banks on the UK and European retail offers. The Latham team was led from London by partners Mark Austin and Ryan Benedict. Other partners included Oliver Seiler, David Rath, Rob Moulton, Karl Mah, Roberto Reyes Gaskin and Thomas Vogel.

The European retail offer covered Germany, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden, with up to 55.5 million shares offered to retail investors. The UK retail offer was separately made available through online investment platforms.