The Mumbai offices of Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners have advised on the acquisition by India’s third-largest private sector bank Axis Bank of financial services businesses of Enam Securities Private Limited (Enam) for Rs 2,067 crore ($450m).

AZB & Partners and Amarchand Mangaldas Delhi have advised on the world’s largest express shipping company FedEx’s acquisition of Indian logistics services provider AFL Private Limited and its subsidiary Unifreight.

The TURF Twenty20 tournament between law firms for the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) Cup has kick-started this year’s cricket frenzy as 16 teams from four pools prepare themselves to battle it out on the fields.

AZB & Partners and Economic Laws Practice (ELP) have advised in the private equity investment led by Nokia Growth Partners (NGP) and Cisco in the IT hosting service provider Netmagic Solutions resulting in a 12 per cent equity buy worth Rs 46.5 crore ($10.6m).

AZB & Partners, Indus Law, ALMT Legal and Trilegal have topped data provider Venture Intelligence’s private equity league tables for the first nine months of this year.

AZB & Partners has acted for private equity (PE) firm Matrix Partners India in its Rs 50 crore investment in New Delhi based eye-care hospital chain Centre for Sight (CFS) which was advised by SRGR Law Offices.

Attorney General of India Goolam Vahanvati was conflicted out of providing the government with a legal opinion on the Vedanta-Cairns deal because his son AZB & Partners Mumbai partner Essaji Vahanvati had worked on the deal, according to a report in the Daily Pioneer today.

Exclusive: AZB & Partners corporate and private equity partner Vaishali Sharma has joined Khaitan & Co’s Mumbai office, as AZB has stemmed a string of associate departures over recent months.

AZB & Partners has topped the mergermarket league table for the first three quarters of 2010 in a record year of M&A activity so far. The firm is followed in the rankings by Desai & Diwanji, Amarchand Mangaldas, Khaitan & Co and newcomer Tatva Legal according to the total number of mandates.

AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co have assisted in Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Rs 1020 crore ($217m) buy today of a 14.12 per cent stake in the Oberoi hotel and resort chain owners.

Private equity (PE) boutique firm Lexygen advised TA Associates in acquiring a nearly 16 per cent stake in Luthra & Luthra’s clients Dr Lal PathLabs for Rs 163 crore by picking up half of Sequoia Capital’s stake in the diagnostics and pathology services company.

S&R Associates has landed the $9.6bn corporate takeover of long-groomed client Cairns India by UK mining giant Vedanta Resources, which was advised by AZB & Partners as Scottish firm Shepherd and Wedderburn and US firm Latham & Watkins stepped up internationally.

Amarchand, Luthra & Luthra, Khaitan & Co and Trilegal have all ramped up their basic starter pay above Rs 10 lakhs, with offered packages including bonuses now running up to Rs 15 lakh at the top end.

Two offices of AZB & Partners acted on opposite sides of a Chinese Wall for private equity investor Matrix India and gold loan company Muthoot Finance in a 4 per cent investment totalling Rs 157 crore with Luthra & Luthra advising second investor Baring Private Equity Partners India.

AZB & Partners advised Japanese steel giant JFE that bought 14.9 per cent for $1.02bn in India’s third largest steel maker JSW, which was advised by Amarchand Mangaldas.

Luthra & Luthra was the most active project finance legal advisers both by value and volume in the first half of 2010, followed by India Law Services, SJ Law Advocates & Solicitors, Amarchand Mangaldas and AZB & Partners and SN Gupta & Co, according to data compiled for Legally India by data provider Dealogic.

According to data provider mergermarket’s latest league table, AZB & Partners was the busiest M&A law firm with 38 deals to its credit in the first half of 2010, followed by Amarchand Mangaldas and Desai & Diwanji in second and third places respectively, with a total of 14 deals each.

AZB & Partners advised close client Tata Power in raising $300m by selling up to 15 per cent in two of its Indonesian coal-assets-owning special purpose vehicles (SPVs) Bhira Investments and Bhivpuri Investments to private equity house Olympus Capital Holdings Asia, which Desai & Diwanji and US firms Milbank Tweed and Purrington Moody Weil advised.

AZB & Partners, S&R Associates and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have advised Dutch bank Rabobank in its divestment of 11 per cent equity in Yes Bank for around Rs 980 crore ($210m) to comply with the RBI’s (Reserve Bank of India) regulation as a prerequisite to attain a full commercial banking license in India.

Amarchand Mangaldas acted on more than half of the total number of Qualified Institutional Placements (QIPs) in Legally India’s QIP League Table of the 2009-2010 fiscal year. AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co were the second-busiest followed by J Sagar Associates (JSA) and Crawford Bayley and S&R Associates amongst domestic firms.

International firm Jones Day bagged the maximum QIPs out of foreign law firms acting for the book running lead managers while Linklaters, Dorsey & Whitney and Clifford Chance also won mandates on a significant numbers of fundraisings.