San Francisco, May 4, 2005– Morrison & Foerster’s corporate finance practice enjoyed a strong first quarter in deal activity, representing clients in securities and M&A transactions internationally totaling $13.5 billion – including the first public offering from China this year.  The firm also added a number of top corporate lateral partners in 2005.

Overall, Morrison & Foerster served as legal counsel on the following transactions in 2005 Q1:

• 29 debt offerings valued at approximately $9.9 billion;
• 15 equity public offerings raising $7.4 billion, including 6 IPOs with a value of $1.5 billion, 9 follow-ons, and 5 PIPE transactions;
• 32 M&A representations (announced or closed) with a value of approximately $5.4 billion.

The first quarter M&A deal list activity happened in a number of industry sectors – 14 in technology, along with transactions in life sciences, transportation, real estate, consumer products, retail, banking, and business services.

Among publicly announced deals, the firm’s representations included:

• Dubai Investment Group and Milestone Group in their joint $1 billion acquisition of an apartment portfolio from Olympus Real Estate Partners (the acquisition of 69 apartment buildings in five Sunbelt states was the largest apartment portfolio acquisition in U.S. since 2001);
• Inamed Corp. in its $2.8 billion acquisition by Medicis Pharmaceuticals;
• Redfire, Inc.’s $156.6 million stake purchase in Skyy Spirits LLC from Kanbar Spirits and Laguna Holdings (Redfire is a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary of Davide Campari-Milano SpA);
• United Dominion Realty Trust’s $69 million in real estate dispositions;
• JDS Uniphase in its $65 million acquisition of Lightwave Electronics Corporation;
• China HR.com in a 40% stake purchase by Monster Worldwide for $50 million.

The firm also managed some key public and private offerings, including serving as issuer’s counsel for the first NASDAQ IPO out of China in 2005, as well as working on two of the quarter’s top 10 U.S. Venture Capital financings. Representative transactions included:

•  Hurray! Holdings Co. in its $70.5 million initial public offering, the first Nasdaq IPO from China in 2005;
• Ardana plc and Plethora Solutions Holdings in their initial public offerings in the U.K.;
• Nikko Citigroup and Goldman Sachs International as joint global coordinators and joint lead managers in a $917 million global offering by Jupiter Telecommunications;
• Ray Dolby as selling stockholder in Dolby Laboratories’ $495 million initial public offering;
• Nikko Citigroup and UBS Investment Bank Japan in Japan Retail Fund Investment’s $448 million global offering;
• SolarFlare Communications, Inc. in its $48 million venture capital financing;
• Forward Ventures in a $43 million venture capital financing of Predix Pharmaceuticals;
• Syneron Medical Ltd. in its $222 million ordinary share offering.

Rankings

Acknowledging the firm as a leading U.S. legal advisor in equity and debt offerings, M&A transactions and PIPEs, the firm was ranked by Thomson Financial, Mergerstat and PrivateRaise in the following categories:

Thomson Financial

Top M&A Law Firms
US Target Advisor Completed Deals

Mergerstat

US Legal Advisors Announced Deals
US Legal Advisors Announced Deals by Value

PrivateRaise

Among the Top PIPEs Issuer Law Firms by Number of Deals and Dollar Value

A number of senior corporate, securities, real estate finance and tax partners have joined the firm this year. In New York: Yaacov Gross and Thomas Humphreys; in Northern Virginia: Lawrence Yanowitch, Thomas Knox, Jack Lewis, Charles Katz, Gregory Giammittorio, and John Harper; in Los Angeles: Hillel Cohn; in San Diego: Mark Wicker; in London: Paul Claydon and James Gubbins; in Tokyo: Keisuke Mochizuki; and in Hong Kong, Paul McKenzie.

"This was a terrific start to the year, not only for the scope of transactions across multiple industries, but given that deal activity was coming out of so many different markets – London, New York, California and Asia," said Robert Mattson, co-chair of Morrison & Foerster’s corporate practice.  "Even with a slow down in IPO activity, we managed to stay active in the public equities market."