Cleary Gottlieb advised the underwriters, led by Merrill Lynch and UBS, in the initial public offering of 9,865,000 American Depositary Shares of Tongjitang Chinese Medicines Company, a company producing modernized traditional Chinese medicines. The total offering size was approximately $99 million. The ADSs began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on March 16 and the offering closed on March 21.
This transaction was the first U.S. listing by a traditional Chinese medicine company.
Tongjitang was founded in 1995 and has its production facilities in Guizhou province in southwestern China. The company focuses on the development, manufacturing, marketing and selling of modernized traditional Chinese medicines. Its flagship product, Xianling Gubao, is the leading traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of osteoporosis in China.
Tongjitang’s shareholders include ML Global Private Equity Fund, L.P. and Merrill Lynch Ventures L.P. 2001, private equity funds affiliated with Merrill Lynch. Cleary Gottlieb represented these Merrill Lynch funds in their purchase of 9.9% of the shares of Tongjitang in a transaction that closed on November 8, 2006.