CC, Cleary act on $7.3bn Bank of America sell-off

Clifford Chance (CC) and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton have taken lead roles on Bank of America's $7.3bn (£4.7bn) sale of a 16% stake in China Construction Bank (CCB), reports The Am Law Daily.

Under pressure from regulators to raise capital, many US banks are now looking for cash, and BoA announced last week that it would sell its 3.5 billion shares of CCB as part of a plan to raise nearly $35bn (£23bn) in capital.

Under the terms of the agreement, BoA's CCB stake will be sold to a group of investors that includes China Life Insurance, Chinese private equity firm Hopu Investment Management and Singapore's sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings.

Temasek was advised by a CC team led by cross-border M&A partner Ting Ting Tan in Singapore. CC had also counseled Temasek on its initial $6bn (£3.9bn) investment in CCB and the Bank of China in 2005.

BoA was advised by Cleary M&A partner Paul Shim in New York, corporate and securities partner Megan Tang in Hong Kong, senior lawyer John McGill and associate Emily Cooke in Washington DC and associate Zheng Zhou in Beijing. The firm also advised BoA on the acquisition of its CCB stake back in 2005.

Beijing-based CCB was once completely state-owned before a series of initital public offerings in 2005 began opening China's state banks to foreign investment.

Anthony Root, head of the Asia practice at Milbank Tweed Hadley & McCloy, was CCB's outside M&A counsel on its 2005 deals. However, because the latest transaction only involved CCB shareholders, the Chinese bank remained on the sidelines and did not need to retain outside counsel.

The Am Law Daily is the website of The American Lawyer, Legal Week's US sister title.