NSE IPO: Which law firms are advising the stock exchange on its public listing?

National Stock Exchange of India Limited’s proposed initial public offering has brought in Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Latham & Watkins LLP, Khaitan & Co, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co and Sidley Austin LLP as legal advisors.

Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas is advising NSE as Indian legal counsel.

Cyril Shroff, Managing Partner, and L Viswanathan, Senior Partner, provided guidance on the transaction.

The CAM team comprises Yash J Ashar, Senior Partner; Manan Lahoty, Partner and Head, Capital Markets; Devaki Mankad, Partner and Regional Co-Head, Capital Markets, West; and Oishika Dasgupta, Partner.

The team also includes Principal Associate Rishav Buxi; Senior Associates Vartika Bhatnagar and Abishek Sankar; and Associates Arjun Badola, Tanishq Mohta, Aditya Maheshwari, Gaurav Lalwani, Khushi Parekh, Rishika Saraswat and Sajal Soni.

Latham & Watkins LLP is acting as international legal counsel to NSE and the team was led by Partner Rajiv Gupta.

Khaitan & Co advised the book running lead managers on the proposed IPO of NSE.

The transaction team consisted of Sudhir Bassi (Executive Director), Madhur Kohli (Partner), Thomas George (Partner), Nagashayana S (Partner), Prathiksha Panduranga (Counsel), Aadhya Singh (Senior Associate), Jash Botadra (Senior Associate), Tharun Vadlapatla (Senior Associate), and Associates Varun M Nair, Lakshmi Raj C, Rupa Veena S, Anveeksha Anand, Nayonika Chatterji, Shishir Tripathi, Shreya Shetty and Siddhil Shah.

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co is also advising the Bankers, with a team including Partners Nikhil Naredi and Krupa Brahmbhatt, along with Principal Associate Harsh Loonker and Associates Ankita Singh, Gayatri Krishnan and Shabri Ray.

Sidley Austin LLP is acting as international legal counsel to the BRLMs, with a team led by Partner Manoj Bhargava.

NSE had filed the draft red herring prospectus in relation to an offer for sale by certain existing shareholders of the company.

The DRHP proposed a public offer of up to 111,411,970 equity shares of face value ₹1 each.

The offer would constitute 22.5% of NSE’s post-offer paid-up equity share capital.

The DRHP also stated that NSE was a professionally managed company and did not have an identifiable promoter under the SEBI ICDR Regulations and the Companies Act.

JSA Advocates & Solicitors advised one of the institutional selling shareholders in this proposed IPO.

Vikram Raghani (Partner) provided strategic inputs and advice.

The mandate was led by Arka Mookerjee (Partner), with support from Pracheta Bhattacharya (Partner), Sourav Modi (Partner) and Prateek Khandelwal (Associate).

The exchange had first filed draft papers for an IPO in 2016 but the process stalled following regulatory investigations into alleged irregularities in its co-location trading facilities.

After years of regulatory proceedings, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) granted a no-objection certificate earlier this year, clearing an important hurdle for the IPO. NSE’s board subsequently approved plans to proceed with the listing through an offer-for-sale structure by existing shareholders.

The DRHP also discloses that M Vasudev Rao was the General Counsel of NSE. However, as per publicly available information, Rao left NSE in 2024.

Amber Gupta joined NSE as Head Legal and SVP in July 2024.

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