Sidley represented Univest Securities, LLC as underwriter counsel in the US$25 million initial public offering (IPO) of American depositary shares of Jianzhi Education Technology Group Co Ltd. (NASDAQ: JZ) (Jianzhi Education) on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Jianzhi Education is a leading educational content products and IT services provider. It develops educational content for high-quality, professional development training resources in China. The successful completion of this IPO makes Jianzhi Education the first company with mainland Chinese Variable Interest Entity (VIEs) that has been listed on Nasdaq since July 2021. With the enhanced review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over disclosure of China-based listing applicants, Jianzhi Education conducted multiple public filings with the SEC to address complex disclosure issues, such as VIE structure, local regulatory environment, industry risks, cybersecurity, and data security.

The Sidley team was led by partner Meng Ding, with support from senior managing associate Liming Xu, and senior legal assistants Alice Liu and Xiaotong Yang. Sidley partner Nicholas Brown helped with PFIC analysis, and counsel Benjamin Nager helped with FINRA filings.