Global law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges represented Edwards Group Ltd., which has its headquarters in Crawley, UK, in connection with its initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York. Shares of the manufacturer of industrial vacuum equipment were priced at $8 per share; and trading of the approximately 12.5 million shares on offer commenced on May 11. At pricing, the market capitalisation of Edwards Group was $903 million. The IPO closed on May 16.
“Edwards’ IPO is one of a very few successful premium equity offerings in the last six months,” said Weil UK Corporate partner Peter King. “The number of IPOs has continued to fall in 2012, particularly those of a cross-border nature, so the Edwards IPO is particularly noteworthy in the current market“.
The Edwards Group, with headquarters in Crawley, England and over 3,300 employees in approximately 30 countries worldwide, is a leading manufacturer of sophisticated vacuum products and abatement systems and a leading provider of related value-added services. In the year ended 31 December 2011, it had a turnover of approximately $1.1 billion. It sells its products and services to more than 20,000 customer accounts across Asia, the Americas and Europe. The company was founded in south London in 1919 and was purchased by private equity firms CCMP Capital and Unitas Capital (then known as CCMP Capital Asia) in 2007. Both CCMP Capital and Unitas Capital are clients of Weil globally.
Weil’s team was led by Corporate partners Alexander Lynch and David Blittner in New York and Peter King in London, and included Employee Benefits partner Andrew Gaines in New York, Tax partners Brenda Coleman and Sarah Priestley in London, and Corporate associates Andrew Woodworth, Kevin Yung and Jayshree Mahtani in New York and Ben Pearce, Irini Kalamakis and Ellie Marques in London. The Weil team worked together with the Edwards Group legal team led by Adam Ramsay, General Counsel. Underwriters Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank were represented by Davis Polk & Wardwell.
