方达律师事务所4月15日宣布，其创始合伙人、现任管理委员会主任周志峰律师将离任这一角色。周律师将在本届管理委员会任期届满时辞去管理职务，并加入一家客户公司。
周志峰律师1993年底参与创建了方达律师事务所，其后在方达工作了26余年。周律师在新闻稿中说：“我真的感到很荣幸，能与这么多才华横溢的同事共事，能一起把方达发展到今天。但我觉得现在是作出改变、迎接新挑战的好时机。从事务所的角度来看，我相信，有了我们共同打下的坚实基础，方达也已经做好迎接变化的准备。”
周律师是私募投资和风险投资、并购及资本市场领域资深专家，尤其熟稔TMT领域。他曾协助数十家中国企业在国内及海外公开股本市场融资，参与的主要交易包括阿里巴巴、宝山钢铁、上海实业、东南电力、上海航空等公司的首次公开发行。他近年参与的主要交易包括阿里巴巴全资收购饿了么、阿里巴巴战略入股苏宁易购等。
方达在新闻稿中表示，事务所将在新管理委员会完成选举后不久宣布新的管理领导团队。管理合伙人高旸律师说：“我们非常感谢周律师过往几十年为方达发展成为市场上首屈一指的律师事务所作出的重要贡献……在新的管理委员会的领导下，在全体合伙人和全体员工的共同努力下，方达将继续过往的成功，并将更加强大。”
另据蚂蚁金服向多家媒体宣布，周律师将出任蚂蚁金服首席法务官。
Fangda founding partner moves to in-house role
Fangda Partners has announced that its senior partner, Jonathan Zhou, who also chairs the firm’s management committee, has decided to step down from his management position. He will join Ant Financial as chief legal officer.
Zhou is one of Fangda’s founding partners and he has been with the firm for the past 26 years. “It has truly been a privilege for me to have worked with so many of my talented colleagues and to have been able to bring the firm to where we are today. But I feel this is the right time for me to make a change and embrace new challenges. From the firm’s perspective, I am confident that, with the strong foundation we have built together, the firm is also well positioned to embrace changes,” he said in one press release.
Zhou is a seasoned expert in private equity, M&A and investments. He assisted some major transactions including IPOs of Alibaba, Fosun International, Baosteel, Shanghai Industrial Investment and Shanghai Airlines. He has represented Alibaba in its buyout acquisition of Ele.me and investment in Suning in recent years.
Fangda said it will announce a new management leadership soon after the election of its new management committee. “We greatly appreciate Jonathan’s significant contributions in the past decades to the development of Fangda to become a premier firm on the market.. With our new management committee in place and the collective efforts of all of our partners and staff, Fangda will continue to build on its success and will become an even stronger firm,” said Gao Yang, managing partner of the firm.
To contact the editorial team, please email ALBEditor@thomsonreuters.com.
