Jesse Gillespie has extensive experience advising clients on global capital markets transactions with a focus on issuers in Japan and Asia. A native English speaker, he is highly fluent in Japanese and proficient in Japanese business and legal writing.

Jesse regularly represents issuers and underwriters in connection with registered and unregistered equity offerings ranging from common stock to convertible bonds and other complex equity-linked transactions. He represented Arm Holdings in its initial public offering on Nasdaq, one of the largest technology IPOs of all time. Jesse also has a leading practice representing J-REIT clients in global offerings. In addition, Jesse has represented shareholders in connection with a wide range of derivative and equity-linked transactions, including the second largest equity-linked transaction in U.S. history and Asia’s largest convertible security offering.

He regularly represents issuers and underwriters in connection with registered and unregistered offerings of debt securities, including both high-yield and investment-grade offerings. He also represents banks and issuers in connection with complex liability management exercises, including integrated consent solicitations, tender offers, and exchange offers.

Jesse has advised clients on multiple noteworthy debt offerings in Japan, including the first global high-yield offering by a Japanese company, the largest international bond offering ever by a Japanese issuer, and the first-ever global debt offering by a Japanese general trading company. He has also advised Japanese and other Asian issuers on numerous benchmark hybrid securities offerings, including the largest hybrid securities offering ever by an Asian issuer. Jesse represents the government of Japan in connection with its sovereign debt registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and registered offerings of guaranteed notes by Japanese government agencies.

While working in China, Jesse advised clients on a wide range of landmark transactions, including debt offerings for central state-owned enterprises, as well as innovative offerings for leading technology firms and high-yield issuers in property and other sectors. He has worked on capital markets transactions for a variety of issuers in South and Southeast Asia.

Jesse is recommended in the 2024 edition of The Legal 500 Asia Pacific for Japan: Capital Markets.