Latham & Watkins has onboarded Grace Huang and Edward Freeman as partners at its Hong Kong office, strengthening its capital markets, M&A and private equity practices.
Both join Latham from Freshfields, where they were partners at the Hong Kong office. Huang had practised at Freshfields in Hong Kong since 2006 and became a partner in 2009. Freeman spent more than 20 years at Freshfields and became a partner in Hong Kong in 2012. He later served as Asia practice group leader for the firm’s global M&A and capital practice.
Huang, who joins Latham’s capital markets team, had practised at Clifford Chance, Allen & Gledhill and Baker McKenzie from 1999.
Her practice focuses on Asian equity capital markets and M&A transactions, with extensive experience in dual and triple primary listings, secondary listings, SPAC and overseas companies’ listings. She advised pan-Asian insurer FWD Group on its USD445 million Hong Kong IPO and led the team advising Synagistics on its business combination with HK Acquisition Corporation and subsequent listing on the HKEX in the city’s first de-SPAC transaction.
Freeman joins Latham’s M&A and private equity team. He has expertise in public M&A, including complex cross-border takeovers, privatisations and contested transactions, advising offerors, targets and financial advisers. His clients include companies, private capital investors, financial intermediaries and insurers.
His experience includes advising on the USD7 billion privatisation of ESR Group by a consortium of financial investors and the EUR4.6 billion (USD5.4 billion) ANTA Sports and FountainVest-led consortium’s acquisition of Amer Sports.
Posit Laohaphan, managing partner of Latham’s Asia offices, said in a press release: “We are delighted to welcome Grace and Ed to the firm. Not only do they have highly complementary practices, but their experience and strong synergies with our platform in Asia and globally will further enhance our market-leading transactional offering across capital markets and public M&A.”
