Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co (WLG) has advised new investment trust Gabelli Value Plus on its £100m initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange as it targets further work from US fund manager GAMCO Investors.
Investment funds head Nick Heather led WLG’s team, assisted by fellow funds partner John Reed and tax partner Michael Murphy. Travers Smith advised Investec Bank, as sponsor, sole global co-ordinator and bookrunner to the transaction with a team led by partner Aaron Stocks.
The trust is managed by New York-based investment manager Gabelli Funds – a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAMCO which has assets under management of approximately $46.9bn.
Commenting on the IPO, Heather said: ‘We are very pleased to have acted on the launch of Gabelli Value Plus, which we hope will be the first of many transactions for significant US fund manager GAMCO. I am also pleased that from first instruction to launch was a period of just under two months (with Christmas intervening) which is a considerable achievement on a deal of this complexity.’
Stocks added: ‘It is fantastic to see a new US equities fund being raised on the London market. This demonstrates the strength of the UK listed investment funds market and its capacity to accept a wide variety of investment strategies.’
The funds team at WLG also recently acted on two sizeable real estate transactions over the last month. The first saw the team advise on the formation, fund raise and initial deployment of £30m in capital for Horizon Long Lease Housing, while the second saw the team act for AEW UK South East Office Fund LP (AEW SEOF) on a £75m secondary fund raise.
kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk
