Asia Pacific
Headlines
HSA Advocates expands its Regulatory & Policy and Disputes Practice with new additions in the partnership collegium
HSA Advocates (“HSA”) is pleased to announce the appointment of Apoorva Misra as Partner and Shreshth Sharma and Nitish Gupta as Associate Partners in the Regulatory & Policy and Disputes practice. While the three partners will be based out of the firm’s New Delhi office, however, their responsibilities will not be restricted by geography. Apoorva...
Benelux law firm AKD keeps in step with growth of Asian market and expands Asian practice
Benelux law firm AKD expands its Asian practice with the arrival of Hyunju Park, Kaori Ishikawa and Xian Kong. Hyunju focuses on the Korean market, Kaori on Japan and Xian on China. Erwin Rademakers, AKD’s managing partner, who is also responsible for the firm’s Asian practice, explains: “The business sector in Korea, Japan and China is growing...
Rachika A Sahay joins HSA Advocates as Partner in the New Delhi office
Rachika A Sahay joins HSA Advocates as Partner to further strengthen the Projects, Energy and Infrastructure and Corporate practices. She will be operating out of the firm’s New Delhi office. Rachika has over a decade of experience in handling a broad range of deals in the energy sector. She also has diverse experience in handling corporate transactions...
Japanese firms step up overseas M&A
Number of deals hits record in first half as smaller companies get into the game With SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son taking the lead, Japanese companies have been engaging in mergers and acquisitions at record levels. Japanese corporations made 339 overseas mergers and acquisitions during the first half of the current Japanese fiscal year, the highest...
Investcorp adds Deepak Parekh to International Advisory Board
Investcorp, a global provider and manager of alternative investment products, today announced that Deepak Parekh, Chairman of HDFC Limited, Indian’s leading Financial Services conglomerate, has been appointment to Investcorp’s International Advisory Board. Mr Parekh has played a significant role in the development of the financial sector...
Finance
Australia is battling China for influence in the Pacific
AUSTRALIA HAS always been proprietorial about what Scott Morrison, the prime minister, calls its “patch”—those millions of square miles of Pacific Ocean over which the archipelagic countries of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia are scattered. It has also been complacent. The patch was for flying over, not visiting. Until this week no Australian...
South Korea’s approach to planning is starkly unsentimental
An endangered alley THE MOSQUE will be left standing. It is perched on top of a hill not far from Itaewon station, at the foot of Namsan, the mountain that towers over central Seoul. Its forecourt offers a commanding view of a jumble of low-rise houses set along winding streets, which give into ever narrower lanes garlanded with precarious-looking...
Motorbikes are oddly absent from Myanmar’s biggest city
Generals’ delight LATE AT NIGHT Klo He Bin likes to don his biking jacket and take to the roads of Yangon on his Yamaha EasyRider. The other 15 members of his gang, the “Freeriders”, cruise alongside, wearing leathers embroidered with their logo. Mr Klo (not his real name) has been a motorbike enthusiast for years and says he likes the freedom...
Mongolians are getting angry about corruption
MORE THAN 20,000 Mongolians braved bone-chilling cold on January 10th to rail against their government in Sukhbaatar square in the centre of the capital. It was the second such protest in a fortnight. The demonstrators, who were allowed into the square only after being breathalysed and frisked, had many grievances, including inequality, unemployment...
Indonesia’s economic growth is being held back by populism
AT A CONFERENCE in Singapore on January 15th, Indonesian officials were out in force. Four senior ministers, the bosses of three state-owned enterprises and a senior civil servant took to the stage to try to drum up private investment in roads and railways. The audience, mainly financiers, nodded along. Not everyone was convinced, though. “The...
Legal
After Fintech, Singapore eyes Legaltech status
Singapore, a haven for disruptive fintech firms, is aiming to shake up Asia's legal sector next The Lion City will host Southeast Asia's first legaltech accelerator from April. The city-state's initiative aims to groom legaltech startups as well as incubate new business models or services conceived by law firms. Singapore's law academy has launched...
China updates New Industry Catalogue
PRC reduces regulatory procedures for foreign investments following its 2016 reforms. China creates a nationally applicable “negative list” for foreign investment, which opens up more industries for multi-national companies.Foreign Investments Filing Administrative Rules will be updated and published soon by the Ministry of Commerce to clarify...
Proposals to make free movement of data a principle of EU law expected this autumn
Ansip said proposed new EU legislation to tackle unnecessary restrictions on where data can be stored are likely to be published this autumn.The proposals will also look to make it easier for businesses to move their data between rival cloud providers and ensure that public sector bodies can access data held by authorities in another EU country to help...
New advertising standards in the UK to take tougher stance on gender stereotypes
The new standards will be drawn up by the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), according to a new report on gender stereotypes in advertising (64-page / 5.4MB PDF) published by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the watchdog that oversees compliance with UK advertising rules.The CAP will also look to "clarify standards that reflect the ASA‘s...
UK government urged to avoid data transfers 'cliff edge' at point of Brexit
In a new report, a House of Lords committee warned that trade and security could be impacted if the flow of data is disrupted at the point of Brexit.To enable data to flow between the UK and EU post-Brexit, the EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee urged the UK government to seek a so-called 'adequacy' decision from the European Commission, which would recognise...
Deals
Japanese groups invest £4.2bn in the UK and Ireland between 2013 and 2017, reveals new M&A report by Livingstone
Transaction values in UK and Ireland reached £978m from Japanese group acquisitions in 2017230 middle market companies acquired across the globe by Japanese groups – up 13% from 2016 Global increase in total transaction values globally to £15.9bn in 2017 –up 15% Europe continued to experience high buyer interest from Japan in 2017, with average...
Japan heading for biggest M&A spree in the U.S.
Japan is on track this year for its biggest acquisition spree in the US as advisers tell chief executives to pounce on deals while Chinese companies are hampered by trade war tensions. The advice of bankers and lawyers to accelerate US-targeted deals has intensified over recent months in line with both the surge in trade war rhetoric and the perception...
Asia-Pacific predicted to continue to dominate M&A activity In H2 2018
Intralinks has issued its Deal Flow Predictor for the fourth quarter of 2018. In the second half of the year, growth in the global number of announced deals will resume (after a first-half pause) at roughly 7% year over year. The strongest growth in announcements will come from technology (Intralinks calls this the TMT sector because tech includes...
HNA turns M&A norms around again
Everyone used to want to be on the sell side; now they want to be on the buy side.In recent months, there has been a new game in Hong Kong investment banking called ‘Distance yourself from HNA’. It is easy to play. On the way up, everyone wanted to advise HNA, the acquisitive-though-opaque Chinese conglomerate whose big holdings include stakes in...
A Fond Farewell and Look Back at Eight Years
A recap of our favorite Private Equity Beat blog posts from over the years. Read More
Acq Lite
Watch: Alex Rodriguez eats snacks with Mr. Peanut in Super Bowl ad teaser
Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Alex Rodriguez is set to star in a Super Bowl commercial for Planters Peanuts that features the company's mascot Mr. Peanut. Planters Peanuts released on Wednesday a teaser for the ad titled Catch of the Day which features the former baseball star catching peanuts being thrown by Mr. Peanut with his mouth. "Game day's gonna get nutty,"...
Look: Ariana Grande says new album is coming in February, releases tracklist
Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Ariana Grande's fifth studio album Thank U, Next will release on Feb. 5, the singer announced on Instagram alongside a tracklist for the project.Thank U, Next, in addition to the title song, will feature tracks "Imagine," "Needy," "NASA," "Bloodline," "Fake Smile," "Bad Idea," "Make Up," "Ghostin," "In My Head," "7 Rings" and "Break...
WWE Smackdown: Becky Lynch, Asuka have heated confrontation, brawl
Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Tensions were high on Smackdown as Becky Lynch confronted her Royal Rumble opponent Asuka before their championship match on Sunday. Lynch, who lost the Smackdown Women's Championship to Asuka in December at TLC, praised The Empress of Tomorrow as one of the best competitors in the world but promised that she will be taking the title...
Interview: Mark Consuelos has 'leaned into' being a villain on 'Riverdale'
Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Veteran television star Mark Consuelos loves being the bad guy on the CW drama series Riverdale, a show that has given him the chance to portray a completely different type of character. Based on characters who appear in Archie Comics, Riverdale features Consuelos as the villainous Hiram Lodge, a wealthy mob boss who wants to grow his...
Famous birthdays for Jan. 23: Tiffani Thiessen, Chita Rivera
Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include: -- American patriot John Hancock in 1737 -- French author Stendhal, a pseudonym for Marie-Henri Beyle, in 1783 -- French Impressionist painter Edouard Manet in 1832 -- Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein in 1898 -- Actor Dan Duryea in 1907 -- Comedian Ernie Kovacs...