UK firm Simmons & Simmons recently added to its China team with the appointment of King & Wood’s Yongmei Evers Cai as a financial markets partner at its Beijing office.
The lateral hire came on the eve of the PRC firm’s merger with Australian legal heavyweight Mallesons Stephen Jaques.
Cai joined King & Wood in 2009, and has more than 15 years of experience in representing multinationals and PRC financial institutions on a broad spectrum of transactions. She focuses on banking, project finance, cross border transactions, real estate matters, and debt capital markets. She is also experienced in PRC-related trade disputes on international trade and commodity transactions.
Speaking on Cai’s joining the firm, Jonathan Hammond, the financial institutions sector head at Simmons & Simmons, said: “Alongside her extensive experience advising Chinese financial institutions, our international clients will benefit from her deep knowledge of financial products and their application in the context of China's constantly evolving regulatory regime.’’
Cai qualified as a PRC lawyer in 1995, and was then admitted to the Law Society of England and Wales in 2001.
In 2010, Cai and King & Wood corporate partner Carolyn Dong advised on the 18 billion yuan loan raised by a 50-50 joint venture, called Sinopec SABIC Tianjin Petrochemical, between Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) and Sinopec. The joint venture obtained 12.3 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) of long-term loans from a consortium of PRC banks, and another 6 billion yuan to cover its working capital needs. At the time, this financing was one of the largest in China. ALB
Other related stories: