Jia Yuan Law Offices and Fangda & Partners have opened offices in Hong Kong.
In April 2012 Fangda & Partners announced it would be branching out into Hong Kong. The announcement was made after the firm hired Peter Yuen, who formerly worked in the Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Hong Kong office. With the sole intention of entering into association with Fangda &Partners, Yuen set up the firm Peter Yuen & Associates in Hong Kong.
Following Yuen’s appointment, Fangda has also tapped other international firms in Hong Kong to staff its new office. It has recruited private equity and M&A counsel Peng Haifeng from Debevoise & Plimpton, litigation associates Rachael Shek from Clifford Chance and Doris Yeung from Deacons.
Beijing-based Jia Yuan is 20-partner boutique firm with a strong focus on corporate finance and capital markets. It’s a familiar name among magic circle firms and Wall Street firms in Hong Kong, as Jia Yuan has worked on numerous Hong Kong IPOs, representing large Chinese state-owned companies.
Jia Yuan’s Hong Kong office is currently staffed by four lawyers, including partners Xu Ying and Sun Tao, who will spilt their time between Beijing and Hong Kong. Different from Fangda’s Hong Kong approach, Jia Yuan will mostly second its lawyers from its three mainland offices to Hong Kong.
“The main focus of the Hong Kong office is not on Hong Kong listings but on providing follow-up services to our clients that have already been listed there or have plans to invest overseas,” said Yan Yu, Jia Yuan’s managing partner. “A growing number of Chinese companies are looking to invest overseas using Hong Kong as a spring board. We are hoping to be more involved in Chinese outbound transactions with our presence in Hong Kong.”
Among a long list of clients, Jia Yuan has recently worked on CITIC Securities’ $1.7bn IPO in Hong Kong with Baker & McKenzie and Lathman & Watkins, the $2.7bn Shanghai IPO of Shaanxi Coal, and the $861m Hong Kong IPO of Yitai Coal with Clifford Chance.
Currently, there are 16 Chinese firms with offices in Hong Kong.
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