Orrick Advises OCI on US$700 Million GDR Offering in Singapore

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP has advised OCI Company Ltd. (“OCI”) in the issue of 14,888,000 global depositary receipts (“GDR”) which are to be listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited.

The offering, valued at US$700 million, closed on May 27, 2011. Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland were joint bookrunners for the deal. According to reports, OCI’s GDR offering represents the largest of its kind by an Asia issuer (ex-Japan) since November 2007.
Led by corporate partners Mark Lee and David Cho, a cross-border team of capital markets lawyers from Orrick’s Hong Kong office successfully advised OCI.
OCI is a world leader in the production of high-purity polycrystalline silicon (a key raw material in the production of solar panels) and recently earned Korea’s first green company and green technology certifications as a result of ten years of research and development into renewable energy production. The company will use the proceeds of this offering towards the construction of two new polysilicon plants to triple its annual production capacity to 86,000 tonnes by the end of 2013 from 27,000 tonnes at the end of last year.
Mark Lee, the head of Orrick’s capital markets group in Asia commented: “We are delighted that OCI’s GDR offering has received such a strong market response.” He added: “Our client is one of the largest suppliers of polysilicon to the solar power industry globally and we have worked with them for many years as their business has grown globally. For this particular deal, Orrick’s dual strengths in renewable energy and capital markets transactions allowed us to successfully represent OCI.”