The Warsaw office of Greenberg Traurig LLP represented Barclays Capital, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Ipopema S.A in the US$640 million initial public offering of Alior Bank S.A., which began trading today on the Warsaw Stock Exchange . It closed on Dec. 12, 2012.
This was Greenberg Traurig’s second IPO representation in Poland during 2012, Greenberg Traurig Grzesiak sp.k., recently represented ZE PAK in its IPO of October 2012, also listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
The Alior IPO consisted of a local and international offering of 12,332,965 primary shares and 24,480,000 shares sold by existing shareholders controlled by Carlo Tassara, the Italian company with holdings in various industries. The shares were sold to retail and institutional investors in Poland and to institutional investors outside of Poland, including several US “qualified institutional buyers” on a Rule 144A basis.
The Greenberg Traurig team was led by Warsaw Partners Ireneusz Matusielański and Federico Salinas, supported by Senior Associate Paweł Piotrowski, Associates Dorota Jenerowicz, Nick Quarrie (London) and Łukasz Karasek.
Jarosław Grzesiak, the Managing Partner of the Warsaw office, commented: “We are proud to have represented the joint global coordinators in this transaction. To us, this represents an important step in the successful integration of our already top-ranking capital markets practice in Poland within our new Greenberg Traurig brand. We have demonstrated that not only we continue to be open for business, but we have in fact grown our practice and strengthened our offering by covering the Polish, U.S. and English law elements of transactions on the ground.”
U.S. and English-law qualified capital markets partner Federico Salinas also commented: “Poland is one of the few countries in EMEA where IPOs are still launching and closing successfully. We have a great team in Warsaw and with our track record we aim to be active in the wider region. We have the experience, the know-how, and we believe we also have the confidence of our investment bank clients to represent and assist them on a wider basis from here”. Salinas also works with clients at Greenberg Traurig Maher in London.
