Dewey & LeBoeuf has represented the Polish Ministry of State Treasury, as the selling shareholder, in the PLN 5.4 billion (US$1.97 billion) listing of Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa S.A. (JSW) on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The IPO is Poland’s largest listing to date in 2011.

The IPO offered 39,496,196 (33.1%) shares in JSW, Europe’s largest coking coal producer, is Poland’s largest asset sale this year, and raised more than a third of the Treasury’s budgetary goal for the year. 

Despite global risk aversion caused by continuing debt concerns in the Eurozone’s peripheral member states and a failing market for European IPOs, JSW’s uniquely attractive attributes prompted over 168,000 Polish retail investors to sign up for its shares. The transaction was very challenging from the beginning, as the privatization has faced trade union opposition. However, a mutually satisfying compromise has been reached after an intense negotiation process. 

JSW is the fourth coal producer listed in Warsaw and the largest by market value, topping New World Resources of the Czech Republic, Poland’s Lubelski Węgiel Bogdanka and Ukraine’s Sadovaya Group. 

Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and UniCredit acted as the global coordinators and book runners on the deal. PKO BP, Ipopema Securities, Société Générale, BRE Bank and Wood & Co. also helped manage the IPO. 

The transaction is Poland’s largest IPO this year, followed by the IPO of Open Finance in April, in which Dewey & LeBoeuf represented the underwriter UniCredit. 

The Dewey & LeBoeuf team was led by Warsaw Office Managing Partner Jarosław Grzesiak, working with Łukasz Pawlak and Piotr Szelenbaum in Warsaw and Joseph Marx in Frankfurt. 

JSW was advised by White & Case and the book runners were advised by Allen & Overy.