Global offshore law firm Harneys has won two Deal of the Year Awards from China Business Law Journal for its work on the Kaisa Group’s debt restructuring and HengXinLi’s launch of the first global real estate crowdfunding platform in China. Award winners were announced on 13 January 2017. Harneys advised Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd in relation to the restructuring of US$2.5 billion of offshore debts. Led by Ian Mann and newly promoted partner Chai Ridgers, both based in Hong Kong, and Jayson Wood, Litigation and Restructuring Partner in the firm’s Cayman Islands office, the restructuring is arguably the largest judicially approved, multi-jurisdictional debt restructuring of a China-based group, with schemes of arrangement sanctioned by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands and the High Court of Hong Kong, together with an application under Chapter 15 of the US Bankruptcy Code for recognition of the Hong Kong scheme.
Harneys also advised HengXinLi on the launch of the first global real estate crowdfunding platform in China, which is designed to provide Chinese investors with access to real estate in major international cities. The platform is aimed at middle class PRC Nationals wanting to invest in real estate in countries such as the UK and the US. As crowdfunding, by its very nature, tends to collect relatively small amounts of capital per investor, the platform had to be structured to allow several BVI companies to co-invest in another BVI company, which would then utilise an offshore vehicle to acquire the underlying property. Aki Corsoni-Husain, Partner, Simon Hudd, Partner, and Shari Hawke, Counsel advised on the transaction.
Jonathan Culshaw, Harneys’ Asia Managing Partner, commented: “Harneys has acted on a number of groundbreaking deals both in Asia and elsewhere in recent years, and these awards highlight not only our global reach but also our involvement in some of the most complex cross-border deals involving offshore elements. I congratulate each of the lawyers who worked on these transactions.”
China Business Law Journal’s awards are presented annually and are based on hundreds of nominations from in-house counsel and other qualified observers, and research conducted by China Business Law Journal’s editorial team.
Harneys has received a number of awards and accolades in recognition of its global growth, including, in 2016: three HFM Awards in New York, Asia and Europe; two Africa Global Funds Awards for excellence in Africa, and The Lawyer’s Offshore Law Firm of the Year 2016.