Deacons strengthens corporate finance practice with new Partner hire

• Appointment reinforces Deacons’ ECM leadership in the Hong Kong market
• Strong practice team has advised on 15 successful IPOs in Hong Kong so far in 2018

Deacons has strengthened its corporate finance practice with the hire of Peter Cheng, an experienced equity capital markets (ECM) lawyer, as Partner.

Peter has a particular practice focus on Hong Kong IPOs, and has advised on a wide range of ECM transactions, compliance with Hong Kong Listing Rules, mergers and acquisitions and private equity investments.

Prior to joining Deacons, Peter worked in the Corporate Department of a leading US headquartered law firm in Hong Kong. Peter has also practiced law with a magic circle firm and two other international law firms in Hong Kong.

In 2016, Peter was seconded to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s Listing and Regulatory Affairs Division where he was primarily involved in reviewing listing applications as well as developing listing related polices in Hong Kong.  In 2009, he was seconded to the legal department of the Hong Kong office of Morgan Stanley Asia where he focused on ECM transactions.

Peter received his B.Com and LLB from the University of Western Australia, and completed his PCLL at the University of Hong Kong, where he was also awarded the Brian McElney Medal in Law.

Ronny Chow, co-head of Deacons’ corporate finance practice group commented: “We are delighted to welcome Peter to Deacons. He has significant ECM experience and a strong track record of advising on complex and high profile dealssuch asChina Literature’s IPO, which will add to the strength and depth of our corporate finance practice.

“As we look to the remainder of this year, we expect the IPO landscape in Hong Kong to remain robust fuelled by investor appetite for new economy companies as well as continued enthusiasm to go-public of small- and medium-sized companies.”

Deacons’ corporate finance practice group has established itself as a ‘go-to’ firm for the full spectrum of corporate finance work, ranging from IPOs to mergers & acquisitions, takeovers, privatisations, DCM deals and other capital market transactions.  The team advised on 70 successfully completed IPOs/new listings in Hong Kong in the past five years (2013-2017), and ranked first among Hong Kong law firms in terms of advising on the largest number of IPOs/new listings announced in the first half of 2018. The team also advised on close to 30% of takeover and privatisation deals involving Main Board issuers during the first half of 2018, including some of the most complex and highest profile deals including among others, proposed privatisation of HAECO by Swire Properties, partial offer for AAG Energy and voluntary offer for eSun by Lai Sun Development.