Moving East

Private equity in Asia is hot, and law firms seem to be taking notice. Recent months have seen several firms open offices in and move attorneys to Asia, all citing increased client interest in the region.
This summer Covington & Burling opened its first Asian office in Beijing, and assigned no less a person than the former chair of its management committee, Stuart Stock, to lead it. Senior counsel Ellen Eliasoph, a former Warner Bros. executive, and counsel Cao Yu, from the local Beijing law firm of Haiwen & Partners, are also based there.
Dechert said it had received a license to open an office in Beijing as well. The firm hired Henry Wang, the former general counsel of joint venture Shanghai General Motors, as a managing partner to head the office. Dechert opened its first office in Asia earlier this year, in Hong Kong. Dechert’s Beijing office will work on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, public and private financings, joint ventures and wholly foreign-owned entities, licensing arrangements and commercial contracts, and compliance and corporate governance issues. The Hong Kong office focuses on fund formation for funds investing in China; private equity and venture capital investments; exits and financings via capital markets offerings; outward strategic and financial investments by Chinese entities; and financing transactions.
Clifford Chance recently appointed Peter Charlton, previously the global head of the firm’s corporate practice, as its regional head of Asia. The firm also relocated private equity specialist and counsel Terence Foo to Beijing from Hong Kong, so that he could strengthen the firm’s mainland practice. Foo has advised CVC Asia Pacific and Affinity Equity Partners, among others, on their investments in China. At the same time, Clifford Chance relocated counsel Yemi Tèpè, a banking and private equity specialist, from London to Tokyo.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, meanwhile, recently relocated a private equity specialist, Heiner Braun, to Shanghai from Frankfurt.
“Heiner’s move reflects the firm’s commitment to serving clients in China’s private equity sector, where activity levels have recently seen a significant increase,” the firm said in a statement.