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 advisers 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
mergers and acquisitions 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 Legal 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.
