Blackstone bets on young advisers Trilegal across from Amarchand for $111m Visa Power stake

Thursday, 28 July 2011 By Legally India Private equity / VC

Trilegal, which has acted for Blackstone Group for six months, advised the private equity (PE) major on its Rs 500 crore ($111m) investment in Visa Group’s power production company Visa Power for a minority stake.

Trilegal partner Nishant Parikh led for the US-based Blackstone Group along with senior associate Rohan Ghosh Roy and associate Anirudh Agarwala.

Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi with partner Harry Chawla, principal associate Puja Sondhi and senior associate Ramanuj Gopalan represented Visa Power on the transaction.

It is understood that Trilegal has only been advising on Blackstone transactions for around six months. Blackstone has in the past also used Desai & Diwanji and Khaitan & Co in India.

Visa Power is an independent Indian power producer with 1,200 MW core assets in captive-mine based, coal-fired power plant in Chhattisgarh in advanced stages of development.

Blackstone is expected to pick up a 28 per cent minority stake in Visa Power, reported Economic Times.

Trilegal Amarchand Mangaldas

Comments

Blackstone 28 Jul 2011, 09:08

+0 -0

Wasnt Blackstone a Platinum Partners client? Intersting to know why they switched...

kianganz 28 Jul 2011, 09:10

We should have mentioned in the story but I believe that Blackstone likes having a number of firms available in many jurisdictions. If you look at past Legally India stories, they have also worked with Desai & Diwanji and Khaitan & Co.

http://www.legallyindia.com/201009031265/Private-equity-/-VC/desai-a-diwanji-gets-into-blackstones-little-black-book-with-two-deals-of-370m

Will update the article to reflect this.

Factual inaccuracy 28 Jul 2011, 10:25

Trilegal has represented Blackstone earlier in their subscription to FCCBs of an Indian wind power company.

Anon 28 Jul 2011, 10:29

Just a clarification, if blackstone has actually been advised by Platinum before, then the title is slightly misleading! :)

Anon 28 Jul 2011, 11:27

+1 -0

Good for Trilegal!

D 28 Jul 2011, 12:34

Trilegal on a big deal after really long! Congrats to Nishant and Rohan.

Anon 28 Jul 2011, 14:04

Visa Power has been long standing client of Khaitan & Co. Wonder why they were not hired even when Mr P Khaitan sits on the board of Visa?

Anon 28 Jul 2011, 21:07

+4 -0

Shardul shroff is on the board of visa power. Wonder if any other funds will bet on the "young advisor" trilegal - they seem to have slipped off the radar!

NM 29 Jul 2011, 13:25

Trilegal's second deal for Blackstone and their sub Sithe Energy after SKS a few months ago.

Trilegal ... 30 Jul 2011, 00:15

Blackstone continues to make lots of investments in India and is spreading work among few Indian firms. LI should not report what Trilegal wants to sell to the world - that they are only advising Blackstone in the past few months. Amarchand has advised Blackstone for investment in Embassy Property. Khaitan has advised Blackstone on investments in Jagran Prakashan, FINO and some other acquisition by a Blackstone portfolio company. All these investments were made in last 2 - 3 weeks. Deal world is not limited to LI reported "Deal Feed" page.

Disappointed reader 30 Jul 2011, 17:14

Dear Kian, unfortunate that you think a law firm backed by a magic circle firm and which in itself has over 10 years of standing is "young" - their breakaway is young, but definitely not them. Are you trying to help them because they seem to be slipping down? Would be best if you continued to be impartial.

kianganz 30 Jul 2011, 18:33

Dear Disappointed,

"Young advisers" is not referring to the age of the firm - it was referring to the time they have only advised Blackstone relatively recently for the first time, according to our sources.

Hence, they are a young adviser for Blackstone, as compared to a number of other Indian firms that Blackstone has used more regularly and for a longer time.

I hope that explains it - again, nothing sinister going on here.

Best regards
Kian

NN 1 Aug 2011, 06:26

Surprised that Legally India is permitting a post entitled "Trilegal [...]". What lies have they told? Has this article been posted by Legally India or Trilegal? Presumably they or someone else brought to LI's attention that they had done this deal. This has been reported? Who at Trilegal has said that they are the only advisor for Blackstone? In fact, the article is saying the reverse!

Borderline defamation and definite sour grapes.

LP 3 Aug 2011, 20:26

Did Trilegal represent Blackstone on this deal? From other news on the internet it looks like Blackstone was represented by their usual counsel Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Trilegal may have been local counsel though.

Anon 4 Aug 2011, 11:49

No 12 is right, Simpson Thacher has represented Blackstone on this deal at least says so over here - http://www.stblaw.com/siteContent.cfm?contentID=3&itemID=73&focusID=3004&newsSpot=1

guess trl was local counsel only!

Anony 4 Aug 2011, 12:51

Doesn't Simpson Thacher always represent Blackstone on pretty much every deal they do anywhere in the world?

Barely Legal 8 Aug 2011, 15:45

+1 -1

Yes. STB represents Blackstone in almost all the deals. Mr John G. Finley who is the legal head in Blackstone was a partner at STB for 22 years.

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