Latham & Watkins' impressive record in negotiating deals involving India's capital markets continues with its role on the jurisdiction's largest international equity offering.

Singapore partner Michael Sturrock led a Latham team, which included counsel Andrew Hutton, acting as US counsel to the joint bookrunners and co-managers in connection with a US$1bn sponsored secondary offering of American Depositary Shares (ADS) by Indian software and services company Infosys Technologies Limited.

Local firm Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A. Shroff & Co advised the joint bookrunners and co-managers on Indian law matters.

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati acted as US counsel to the issuer, with Crawford Bayley & Co its Indian counsel.

The underwriters included joint bookrunners Citigroup, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs (Asia) and UBS. The co-managers were ABN Amro Rothschild, the Banc of America Securities and Nomura International.

Sturrock described this deal as being "fairly tricky" noting that, "everything out of India has its complications".

He added: "This deal has been in the making since late last year. The deal was terrifically executed by the banks which all got along very well despite the large number of co-books and managers."

This is the third major deal on the Indian capital markets in as many months for Latham. In May, the US firm advised Satyam Computer Services on its US$322.5m sponsored ADS offering, while in April it acted as US counsel to the bookrunners in the US$436.7m offering of ADS by the Indian ICICI Bank. Michael Sturrock also led the Latham team on both of these deals.