Weil, Gotshal & Manges has hired Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton’s Beijing office director Li Li to reinforce its China M&A practice.

With over two decades of experience in M&As, Li has been involved in a number of high-profile outbound transactions. Prior to her stint at Cleary, Li was a partner at Debevoise & Plimpton and Pillsbury.

“Li Li will play a key role in our outbound China M&A practice. Chinese outbound M&A transactions have grown from $30 billion in 2007 to nearly $80 billion in 2011, and we expect our China M&A practice to be engaged by an increasing number of Chinese companies doing deals outside of China,” said Akiko Mikumo, Weil’s Managing Partner for Asia.

“This past year Weil was involved in the Wanda-AMC deal, the Yahoo sale back to Alibaba and Bright Food’s acquisition of Weetabix. With Li Li joining us, we will be able to address the needs of our Chinese clients even more comprehensively.”

Liu Zhen is China senior journalist at ALB. Follow us on Twitter: @ALB_Magazine.

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