Delhi start-up Axon Partners has landed a role next to Crawford Bayley and Linklaters on Jaiprakash Power Venture’s surprise $200m (Rs 920 crore) convertible bond issue.

Standard Chartered debt capital markets head Sapan Gupta led the underwriter’s in-house team on the deal and he was assisted domestically Axon Partners founding partner Abhimanyu Bhandari’s.

Linklaters Singapore partner Arun Balasubramanian and associate Bhakta Patnaik handled the international legal advice for Standard Chartered.

Crawford Bayley Mumbai partner Sanjay Asher was instructed for the firm’s long-standing client Jaiprakash Power.

Bhandari said: “It was a very interesting transaction that was executed on a very accelerated timeline.”

The deal was re-offered below its par price on Tuesday (26 January), which was a national holiday in India and a difficult trading day in other Asian financial markets.

The other underwriting banks had backed out of the deal according to the news reports, but Standard Chartered then went ahead and underwrote and launched the entire deal on fixed terms, although it had reduced the issue price.

“After the recession the bond market is coming back quite aggressively,” explained Bhandari. “This deal has stirred emotions.”

Axon Partners was co-founded less than a year ago in Delhi by Bhandari, who was formerly an associate at Shearman & Sterling in London followed by Cravath Swaine & Moore, and litigating advocate Anubhav Singhvi who had worked at Shearman & Sterling’s Singapore office before returning to India to set up the firm.

Axon Partners had picked up its first IPO mandate late last year.

Photo by abooth202

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