Paul Hastings and Slaughter and May are advising China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO) in its merger with China Shipping Group, which turned to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for legal counsel.
JunHe and Grandall Law Firm are also involved, representing COSCO’s and China Shipping’s interests in China, respectively. Anjie Law Firm, meanwhile, is acting for the financial advisors of the deal.
The merger, which was approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission last December and by shareholders this Feburary, brings together two state-owned shipping giants to create the world’s fourth largest container operator. Collectively, COSCO and China Shipping control 488 billion yuan ($76 billion) in assets, Barclays analysts have estimated. The combined company will be known as China Cosco Shipping Corporation (COSCOCS).
Hong Kong partners Teresa Ko, Calvin Lai, David Ludwick, Thomas Ng and Andrew Heathcote as well as Beijing-based Richard Wang are overseeing the merger for Freshfields.
The Paul Hasting deal team, led by Raymond Li, Li Nan, Pei Fang and Edwin Kwok, is representing COSCO, China COSCO Holdings Co Ltd and its associated companies in the restructuring. Partner Lisa Chung is handling the transaction for Slaughters, which is advising COSCO Pacific Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed unit of COSCO also involved in the merger.
Meanwhile, partner Ren Gulong is overseeing the deal for Anjie.
The merger would prevent the two ertswhile market rivals from competing against each other at home and abroad in an industry swamped with depressed freight rates and over supply.
The deal also represents a massive reshuffling of central government-controlled assets just as consolidation of the country's state-owned industry gathers momentum.
