Simpson Thacher represented First Data Corporation (“First Data”) in connection with its initial public offering of 160,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at a public offering price of $16 per share. The offering, which raised approximately $2.5 billion of proceeds for First Data, is the largest U.S. IPO of 2015 to date. First Data’s Class A common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FDC” on October 15, 2015. The underwriters also have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 24,000,000 shares of Class A common stock at the initial public offering price. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated and KKR Capital Markets LLC acted as lead joint bookrunning managers for the offering.
First Data is a global leader in commerce-enabling technology and solutions, serving approximately six million business locations and over 4,000 financial institutions in 118 countries around the world. First Data has 23,000 owner-associates and processes more than 2,300 transactions per second and $1.9 trillion in transaction volume per year. First Data is controlled by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (“KKR”) and is KKR’s largest investment to date.
The Simpson Thacher team included Joseph Kaufman, Richard Fenyes, Ben Wells, Tony Rim, Lisa Zhang, Ashley Belton and Todd Noelle (Capital Markets); Gary Horowitz, Michael Holick and David Daniels (M&A); David Rubinsky, Aimee Adler and Patricia Adams (Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits); Jennifer Nadborny and Dov Gottlieb (Public Company Advisory Practice); and Marcy Geller, Jonathan Cantor and Jodi Sackel (Tax).