Freshfields advises SpaceX on historic IPO
Freshfields has acted as European lead counsel to Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) on the European component of its global initial public offering of Class A common stock shares — the largest IPO in history. The global offering comprised 555.5 million shares, resulting in a total offer size of $75 billion and a company valuation of $1.75 trillion, with the shares listed on Nasdaq.
Deal details
Freshfields’ mandate covered the full scope of the European offering, including structuring, preparation and approval of the EU securities prospectus, and passporting of the prospectus across relevant EEA jurisdictions. The prospectus was approved by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) for use in Germany and passported to Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden. It was also used to facilitate a public offering in Switzerland.
Notably, the SpaceX prospectus is the first equity prospectus approved by BaFin under the new Level 1 rules of the EU Listing Act, which entered into force on 5 June 2026 — the same day the prospectus received approval.
Legal Teams
The Freshfields team was led by partners Christoph Gleske and Daniel von Bülow (both capital Markets, Frankfurt). Further partner-level support was provided by Sebastian Röger (tax, Frankfurt), Guillemette Burgala (corporate/capital markets, Paris) and Thomas Metayer (tax, Paris).
Counsel Peter Stark (tax, Frankfurt) and Valentine Pouyet (corporate/capital markets, Paris) contributed to the transaction. The principal associate team included John Sichelschmidt and John Haviland (both capital markets, Frankfurt), Kanitha Neal (corporate/capital markets, Paris) and Victoria Hrubesch-Bazil (capital markets, Vienna). Associates Vincent Buchta and Enzo Paganetti (both capital markets, Frankfurt and London respectively), Riet Devriendt (corporate/capital markets, Brussels), Filippo Sciarrone (finance/capital markets, Milan) and Geoffroy Coinchelin (tax, Paris) rounded out the team.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, served as global lead counsel to SpaceX, with a team led by Hillary Holmes, Harrison Tucker and Atma Kabad.
