HONG KONG (February 8, 2012) – Morrison & Foerster is pleased to announce that Melody He-Chen, a leading corporate lawyer with broad experience in capital markets, securities regulation and corporate finance, has joined the firm's Hong Kong office as a partner in the Corporate Group. Ms. He-Chen has an extensive background representing investment banks and Chinese, American, and international companies from a wide variety of industries in an array of transactional capacities, including public offerings, private placements, debt offerings, private equity, mergers & acquisitions, cross-border joint ventures and financings. She also advises on corporate governance and compliance matters. Her addition, coupled with the recent promotion of Gregory Wang to partner in Hong Kong, adds depth to the firm's robust capital markets expertise.
Eric Piesner, Co-Chair of the firm's Business Department who is based in Morrison & Foerster's Tokyo office, said, "We continue to add top practitioners to our global Corporate Practice, particularly in China. Melody's addition underscores our robust array of services to clients in the region and around the world."
Ven Tan, Managing Partner of the Hong Kong office, said, "Melody is an important addition to our Hong Kong office. She has a wealth of transactional experience, particularly in equity and debt capital markets including Hong Kong IPOs, global offerings, rights issues, and high-yield bonds, RMB denominated bonds and convertible bonds offerings. Her experience in China will further strengthen our global corporate platform."
Ms. He-Chen sees Morrison & Foerster as a perfect fit for her practice. "I am excited to join a firm with such deep roots and commitment in Asia and an extremely active capital markets, M&A, private equity, and corporate practice in Hong Kong," said Ms. He-Chen. "The firm's prominence in the financial institutions, technology, and life sciences sectors makes it a perfect home for my practice."
Ms. He-Chen earned an LLB at Shenzhen University in China and an LLM at the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall). She received her JD from Rutgers University School of Law. Ms. He-Chen is admitted in New York, California and China and is fluent in English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
With full-service offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai, Morrison & Foerster's China-based corporate practice handles a wide range of equity and debt capital markets, M&A, private equity transactions. Transactions handled in 2011 by our Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai offices include:
- Representing CICC and CITIC Securities as joint underwriters in the US$4 billion A- and H-share rights issue of China CITIC Bank Corporation Limited.
- Representing Softbank in the Alibaba Group's proposed US$4 billion restructuring of its holdings in Alipay, China's largest online payment system, to address regulatory requirements relating to foreign ownership of online payment systems in China.
- Representing Rakuten with respect to its joint venture with Baidu, Inc., the leading Chinese-language Internet service provider, to build a Business-to-Business-to-Consumer online shopping mall for Chinese Internet users.
- Representing Hong Kong-listed China Resources Power Holdings Company Limited in its US$669 million acquisition of a 56% stake in Daning coal mine from Banpu Public Company Limited, a major Thailand-based natural resources company.
- Representing BOCI Asia and UBS as placing agents in the US$684 million placing of shares of Sino-Ocean Land Holdings Limited by its shareholder COSCO International Holdings Limited.
- Representing Dalian Port Company Limited in its RMB400 million 5.8% bond offering due 2014 with Bank of Communications, BNP Paribas, CCBI, Deutsche Bank, BofA Merrill Lynch, and UBS as underwriters.
- Representing CICC, along with investment banks Morgan Stanley and UBS, as agents for a US$440 million secondary offering on behalf of Sinopharm Group, the largest distributor of pharmaceutical and healthcare products in China. The firm had earlier represented underwriters Morgan Stanley, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Citi, and CICC, in Sinopharm's US$1.1 billion IPO in 2009.
- Representing CICC, UBS and RBS as joint bookrunners on the US$300 million Hong Kong IPO and Rule 144A/Regulation S global offering of Guodian Technology and Environment Group Corporation Limited.
- Representing social game developer and publisher Six Waves Inc. in connection with a number of preferred equity transactions.
- Representing Intel Capital Corporation in its investment in Cloud Union Ltd, a leading live cloud and streaming service provider for high quality (3D graphic and rich audio) gaming in China.