Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised China Tower Corporation, the world’s largest operator of mobile telecommunications towers, on its $6.9 billion listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with Clifford Chance representing the joint sponsors and underwriters.

According to Reuters, this is the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO), and comes at a time when recent floats have struggled to maintain issue prices. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, for example, suffered a weak debut in early July after raising $4.7 billion.

The China Tower IPO took the amount raised by companies listing in Hong Kong in 2018 to $22.4 billion, in the city’s best performance by this point in the year, Reuters added. That makes it the world’s leading centre for capital raising, ahead of second-placed New York Stock Exchange at $20.6 billion.

China Tower holds a market share of 97.3 percent of the mainland China market by revenue. The firm intends on using the IPO for new site construction and augmentation, replacement and improvement of ancillary facilities, repaying loans, and general corporate purposes.

The Freshfields team was led by China chairman Teresa Ko, head of China equity capital markets Richard Wang and partners Jason Xu and Yan Chen.

The Clifford Chance team, which counselled the joint sponsors and underwriters including China International Capital Corporation (CICC) and Goldman Sachs, was led by Hong Kong partner Fang Liu, partner Amy Lo and Beijing partner Tim Wang.

Recently, both Freshfields and Clifford Chance acted on Sinochem Energy’s $2 billion Hong Kong IPO. While Freshfields advised the issuer, Clifford Chance represented the joint sponsors and underwriters.

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