Luthra & Luthra and Perkins Coie acted for the Government of India in the first-of-its-kind central public sector enterprise (CPSE) exchange traded fund (ETF), which offered stakes in 10 public sector undertakings (PSUs) through a mutual fund structure.

The Luthra team was led by senior partner Mohit Saraf, Mumbai capital markets partner Manan Lahoty, managing associates Geeta Dhania and Vishal Yaduvanshi, senior associate Shikhar Kacker and associate Abhiroop Lahiri.

Perkins Coie, which advised India on non-Indian laws, was led by Dallas partner and India group head Indrajit Bobby Majumder.

The ETF, which was modelled on a similar structure that was used in Hong Kong, involves around Rs 3,000 crore of shares of listed PSUs, offered to investors via a mutual fund created specifically for the purpose.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management manages the fund, which can also launch follow-on issues in future.

The advantage of an ETF is that it allows easier and smaller investments in a variety of PSUs, spreading the risk and upside among a greater portfolio of companies, explained Lahoty.

Lahoty said that the issue was oversubscribed, despite only a short offer period of less than a week. The firms conceptualised the structure for the Indian market with Goldmans and ICICI, which was the financial advisor to the government.

The fund includes the highly-rated PSUs Oil & Natural Gas Corp, GAIL India, Coal India, Indian Oil, Oil India, Power Finance Corp, Rural Electrification Corp, Container Corp, Engineers India and Bharat Electronics, reported the PTI.