The IPO wave fueled an unprecedented demand for capital markets lawyers

A huge surge in initial public offerings in the country in recent months has led to a scramble among law firms for specialist capital market lawyers to meet the growing demand for legal counsel for IPOs.

The demand is so high that in some cases, law firms are willing to hire at the partner level without a large book or even with a ‘no target’ of around one year, talent search professionals told ET.

“The highly charged IPO frenzy in the market and the high demand for specialist capital markets lawyers have led to experienced teams as well as new firms establishing the practice through inorganic hiring or practice acquisition,” said Lee Ignatius. Partner at specialist search firm Vahura.

He said this is the highest demand for capital market specialist lawyers in the last decade. “In certain cases, companies are willing to hire a field expert with a soft landing, considering the long-term strategic play,” he added.

Vahura is working on some strategic mandates for firms hiring for their capital markets practice, Lee said.

Several capital market specialist lawyers have changed jobs in recent weeks.

Last month, Geeta Dhania and Prashant Vikram Rajput joined the Economic Law Practice (ELP) as capital markets partners from Luthra & Luthra Law Offices while Talwar Thakor & Associates (TT&A) announced the addition of Abhinav Kumar as a partner in the capital markets practice from Cyril. Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM).

Before that, Manan Lahoti joined CAM as partner and head of the capital markets practice, along with a 48-member team of eight partners and 40 associates from rival firm IndusLaw.

In July, Trilegal roped in Vijay Parthasarathy and Vinay Sirohia from CAM to join its capital markets practice.

Amid the rush of IPOs and QIPs (Qualified Institutional Placements), “even firms that do not traditionally offer capital markets are adopting a defensive capital markets strategy by recruiting partners,” said Premal Shah, founder of boutique executive search firm FCL Search. teams to serve their internal customers.

He said that FCL Search is working on some orders to hire for this practice.

The IPO frenzy has increased the cost of hiring legal counsel for first issues.

Chirag M. is an independent advocate practicing in the capital market. “The cost of hiring law firms for an IPO is in the range of Rs 80 lakh to Rs 2 crore, depending on the complexity and size of the businesses,” Shah said. “These rates have doubled in the last three years.”

“Long-gestation cycle work like capital markets requires being very careful about who is onboarded,” said Srishti Ojha, founder of Varist Law.

According to publicly available data, by the end of August, around 50 companies have raised a total of Rs. 53,453 crore has been collected. In September, about Rs. About 10 companies were to be listed to raise 11,300 crores.

In comparison, in the whole of 2023, 57 companies have Rs. 49,436 crore was launched to raise IPO.