The market for initial public offerings has picked up this year and Vinson & Elkins is capitalizing on it.
The Houston-based law firm advised paint pigment maker Venator Materials on its $454 million sale of shares on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday of last week.
Partners Alan Beck and Sarah Morgan led the deal team, which included senior associate Scott Rubinsky and associate McCall Grimes, all of whom are in Houston. Tax associate Allyson Seger in Austin also worked on it.
Venator general counsel Russ Stolle was a longtime attorney at Venator’s parent, Huntsman Corp., which he joined in 1994 (he most recently served as deputy general counsel). He previously was a lawyer at Texaco and an associate at Baker Botts.
Partners Ilir Mujalovic and Harald Halbhuber at Shearman & Sterling in New York represented the underwriters, which included Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan, among others.
Beck said Vinson & Elkins won the work based on its long-term relationship with Huntsman.
Indeed, four years ago, the firm advised Huntsman on its $1.1 billion acquisition of the performance additives and titanium dioxide businesses of Rockwood Holdings that later became known as Venator (partners Steve Gill and Jeff Floyd worked on that transaction).
Vinson & Elkins also counseled Huntsman on its $20 billion agreed-to merger with Switzerland’s Clariant in May, along with Kirkland & Ellis (David Fox in New York) and Swiss firm Bär & Karrer. Huntsman general counsel David Stryker previously worked at Kirkland.
The proceeds from Venator’s offering will go to Huntsman so it can pay down its debt load. Huntsman will still own almost 79% of the company.
Huntsman said in 2015 that it wanted to take Venator public but it never happened, probably because of market conditions.
Its shares this time around priced at $20 per share, at the low end of their expected $20 to $22 per share range. The deal involved 22.7 million shares, which jumped 3.3% on their first day of trading. The stock closed at $20.53 on Monday, up 2.6% from its offering price.
IPO’s that have priced are up more than 57% this year over last year, according to IPO research firm and ETF manager Renaissance Capital, and more are expected given the strength in the financial markets.
Stafford, Texas-based oilfield services provider Ranger Energy Services, which has backing from Houston private equity firm CSL Capital Management, is expected to raise $85 million in an IPO later week. Vinson & Elkins’ Douglas McWilliams and Julian Seiguer in Houston are advising Ranger while Cravath Swaine & Moore’s William Whelan is assisting the underwriters out of New York.
Also looking to price this week is the offering of Contura Energy, a Bristol, Tenn.-based coal company that emerged out of the restructuring of Alpha Natural Resources. That company is using lawyers out of the New York office of Davis Polk & Wardwell, but Latham & Watkins’ Ryan J. Maierson and John M. Greer in Houston are counseling the underwriters.