DLA Piper has recently promoted Steven Liu to head of corporate practice in Beijing shortly after the departure of venture capital and PE practice head Rocky Lee.

Liu, who has been partner at DLA Piper for three years, will be overseeing DLA Piper's overall Beijing corporate practice work with a focus in PE and venture capital, a responsibility broader to that of Lee's former role.

Liu also has a broad background in M&A and capital markets practices. He recently advised Datang Telecom in its US$171.8m investment in Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation and AsiaInfo in its US$733m acquisition of Linkage. His capital markets work includes QKL Stores' US$40m Nasdaq listing and VanceInfo's US$60m secondary and follow-on Nasdaq offering.

DLA Piper has been experiencing a considerable amount of corporate deal activity in China recently, having closed both Taifeng’s Hong Kong IPO and China New Borun’s Nasdaq IPO in a week. “We've found that workflow between our Greater China practice and the broader Asia Pacific region is increasing and we expect deals to continue to grow not only in complexity and scale, but also in terms of reach to Asia regional and other global markets,” said Alastair Da Costa, DLA Pipers Asia managing partner.

Prior to Liu promotion, the firm also boosted its corporate practice in counterpart Shanghai by hiring Wan Li from Minter Ellison. ALB

Related stories:

• Rocky Lee trades DLA PIper for Cadwalader
• DLA Piper hires Minters Shanghai head