International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised Ziggo N.V., the largest cable operator in the Netherlands, on its global offering and listing on NYSE Euronext in Amsterdam, acting as Ziggo’s lead Dutch, US and English counsel. The offering is a secondary sale by the company’s founding shareholders, which include affiliates of Cinven and Warburg Pincus.

Based on the price range announced today, the offering is valued at between €681 million and €763 million, making it the largest European IPO to be launched in almost a year and the largest in the Netherlands since 2009. This implies a market capitalisation of approximately €3.5bn (at the mid-point of the price range). 

The Freshfields team advising on the transaction was led by partners Robert ten Have, Dirk-Jan Smit (both corporate Amsterdam) and Sarah Murphy, the global co-head of the firm’s International Capital Markets practice (London). They were supported by senior associates Henriette van Overklift and Hendrik-Jan Schimmel and associates Marlies de Wilde, Aafke Pronk, Igor Dovgaliouk, Lisa Hees, Els Metten, Youssef Rasnabe and Susanne Bender in Amsterdam and senior associate Charity Trelease and associates Bob Lehner and Megan Castellano in London. 

Commenting on the deal, corporate partner Robert ten Have, said: ‘Europe has seen no sizeable IPOs since the middle of last year as high volatility and the uncertainty of the euro zone debt crisis have put companies off their listing aspirations, so the hope is that this deal will see a turnaround in activity levels across European exchanges’. 

Sarah Murphy, added: ‘With stock markets continuing to pick up since the beginning of the year and some stability returning, everyone is looking to this deal as the one that might re-open the European IPO markets, as companies and private equity owners might now be tempted to test the capital market waters once more’.