Russian aluminium producer Rusal’s January listing has been the subject of speculation since November last year. But Teresa Ma and Jon Gray, partners at Linklaters that advised the underwriters on the listing, have the inside line on how it really got done.
Rusal contained Hong Kong’s first conditional approval, had the world’s largest prospectus and involved a simultaneous placing in Hong Kong and Paris.
Some have remarked that disclosure in its 1400-page prospectus – the largest ever – was necessary to placate a nervous Securities and Futures Commission (SFC); that its conditional approval, banning investors with less than HK$1 million ($129,000), creates a worrying precedent for a two-tier market; and even that the threshold can be sidestepped, if investors pool their funds and invest as one individual.
Happy regulators
Much debate centred on whether the SFC and Hong Kong...