Mayer Brown, Baker & McKenzie and Sullivan & Cromwell have recently been instructed on the ION Geophysical Corporation US$400m JV and stock sale with BGP.

The firms were advised on three separate transactions for the parties – the JV, BGP’s investment in the stocks of ION and ION’s refinancing of its senior credit facilities.

This deal was led by a Mayer Brown cross-border team that consisted of partners from Washington DC, Houston, Hong Kong and Beijing. The team gave legal advice on a wide range of issues regarding both onshore and offshore arrangements under general corporate, IP, finance, PRC and US regulatory and anti-trust laws.

“There were a variety of complications resulting from the contribution of various offshore assets held by ION and the wish of the parties to achieve the completion of PRC formalities and obtain the required approval within the limited period of time,” said Mayer Brown’s Beijing-based partner Ian Lewis.  

JVs have recently become very popular with Chinese investors in overseas pursuits. Most recently, China Coal Import & Export Company entered into a A$30m JV with Australian junior miner MetroCoal. PetroChina also entered into a joint bid with Royal Dutch Shell’s for Australia’s Arrow Energy earlier this year.

“The arrangements are certainly part of a new trend involving major PRC companies looking to establish an international presence. This is an important part in the development of the Chinese outbound strategy, and this deal demonstrates that international cooperation arrangements between foreign entities and major PRC SOEs based on a PRC JV are possible – and that more of these deals can be expected,” said Lewis.

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