News & Events

The Firm is representing Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., UBS Securities LLC and A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc., as co-leads of an underwriting syndicate, in the initial public offering of Eaton Vance Tax-Managed Diversified Equity Income Fund (NYSE: ETY). The offering raised $2.62 billion ($3 billion, assuming full exercise of the underwriters’ overallotment option). This deal marks the largest NYSE-listed IPO of 2006 and the largest closed-end fund offering in history. With this transaction and the $880 million IPO of the BlackRock Real Asset Equity Trust in September, Simpson Thacher has represented Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC in its first two offerings as lead underwriter of closed-end funds.

The Simpson Thacher team working on the transaction includes: Sarah Cogan, Laura Wolff and Sarmad Khojasteh (Capital Markets/Public Funds), Charlie Rappaport and Sean Austin (Tax) and Mark Lab (Blue Sky).