BEIJING, Feb. 13 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Davis Polk & Wardwell today announced that the Government of the People's Republic of China has granted the firm a license to open an office in Beijing. The Beijing office, which joins Hong Kong and Tokyo as the firm's third location in Asia, expands the presence and reach of Davis Polk's broad and highly successful practice in China.
Active in China for more than a century, Davis Polk is one of the most experienced legal advisors on large, complex and groundbreaking securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, project financings and other global transactions involving Chinese companies. In 2006, the firm was lead counsel to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) on its $21.6 billion dual-listed initial public offering, the largest IPO in history and the first-ever on a domestic Chinese stock exchange that was part of a global offering. Davis Polk also advised ICBC on a $3.78 billion investment by Goldman Sachs, Allianz Group and American Express. Other high profile Chinese matters handled by Davis Polk include the IPOs of Air China, China Merchants Bank, China Construction Bank, Sinopec, China Unicom, and Baidu.com, the proposed $18.5 billion acquisition of Unocal by CNOOC, the formation of China International Capital Corporation (CICC), and numerous other equity and high-yield debt offerings and merger and acquisition and private equity transactions involving companies in China.
Davis Polk partner Show-Mao Chen will head the Beijing office. Mr. Chen has more than a decade of experience advising on transactions in China, and he is cited by numerous legal guides, including Chambers Global and the Asia Pacific 500, as one of the region's leading lawyers on global transactions. He is a native Mandarin speaker. The Beijing office will be supported by the more than 20 China Practice lawyers that the firm now has in the region.
"Mainland China has been a key strategic focus of the firm since we opened our Hong Kong office in 1993, and we are pleased with the great success we have had in advising on many of the largest and most notable transactions that have emanated from China" said John R. Ettinger, managing partner of Davis Polk & Wardwell. "With a full-time presence on the ground in Beijing we hope to further expand our success in serving companies and financial institutions venturing into China, as well as increase our representation of Chinese companies as they contemplate and execute global transactions."
Show-Mao Chen added, "Over the course of the many groundbreaking transactions on which we have advised in China, Davis Polk has been uniquely successful in blending our world-class expertise and resources in global corporate transactions with an in-depth understanding of Chinese business practices and government regulations."
About Davis Polk
Davis Polk & Wardwell is a global law firm based in New York City. For more than 150 years, our lawyers have advised industry-leading companies and global financial institutions on their most challenging legal and business matters. Davis Polk ranks among the world's preeminent law firms across the entire range of our practice, which spans such areas as capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, credit, litigation, investment management, insolvency and restructuring, executive compensation, intellectual property and tax. The firm has more than 600 lawyers in offices in New York, Menlo Park, CA, Washington, D.C., London, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo.
For more information, contact:
Kevin Cavanaugh
Tel: +1-212-450-6811
Email: kevin.cavanaugh@dpw.com
Wu Huanyu; Grace Li
Webershandwick PR Agency
Tel: +86-10-8580-2022
Email: gli@webershandwick.com / hywu@webershandwick.com
