More Singapore law firms expanding overseas

Some Singapore law firms like Wong Partnership are beginning to find the island too small for their ambitions and have begun to expand abroad with renewed vigour.

Wong Partnership's senior partner Alvin Yeo said if law firms here are to grow, they have to look for work abroad. It plans to grow in the region and especially in the Middle East where it has found quite a lot of work, particularly from Singapore companies which are involved there.

'We already have an office in Doha in the gulf state of Qatar. But we are looking at opening several other offices in the region,' said Mr Yeo, who took over from founder Wong Meng Meng at the beginning of the year.

Its regional practices division at present serves China, India and the Middle East. In Shanghai, it has about a dozen lawyers.

The firm has grown to become one of the top six firms here with over 180 lawyers since its founding in 1992 by Mr Wong, who was previously a partner of Lee & Lee and the senior partner of Shook Lin & Bok.

Overseeing Wong Partnership's overseas offices is managing partner, Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, whose areas of practice are mergers and acquisitions, corporate law and debt capital markets.

To push the firm even further overseas, Wong Partnership has taken in senior counsel and former Harry Elias & Partners managing director Tan Chee Meng.

Asked why he decided to join Wong Partnership, Mr Tan replied: 'I was impressed by the vision of the firm seeking to excel not just in Singapore but also in China and the Middle East. I am looking forward to be part of the firm's push into the region, and add to its growing international arbitration practice.'

Mr Tan, who is also a qualified civil engineer under a Colombo Plan Scholarship in 1979, has also brought with him to Wong Partnership another Harry Elias partner, Josephine Choo, and three associates.

After getting his engineering degree, Mr Tan was awarded a Singapore government legal scholarship to read law at the National University of Singapore and Cambridge where he obtained First Class Honours. He then served as deputy senior state counsel and as a deputy director at the Commercial Affairs Department. Subsequently, he spent 14 years at Harry Elias before joining Wong Partnership.

On the firm's international expansion, Mr Yeo noted: 'Funnily enough, a lot of the work is coming from Singapore. We are getting calls from companies, including from government-linked companies, and there are also companies from overseas wanting to invest here and in the region.'

For instance, the firm is acting for the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which together with Hotel Properties and Morgan Stanley Real Estate, is involved in a $500-million en-bloc deal to buy Horizon Towers in Leonie Hill Road. Some of the residents are now involved in a legal dispute over the pricing of the deal. Wong Partnership is also advising QIA on other investment projects in the region. The firm also acted for Abu Dhabi-listed Aabar Petroleum Investments Company PJSC in its acquisition of Singapore-listed Pearl Energy.

Wong Partnership's strategy in the Middle East is to have several small offices staffed with about four or five lawyers each because of the fragmented nature of the region. 'This is because Qatar is one market, Saudi Arabia is another. Even in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai is another market,' Mr Yeo pointed out. The firm is also on the lookout to hire native Arabic speakers to better equip itself for local conditions.

'Basically we have to bring the value-add to our clients. We act as a bridge between our various clients. For example, China investors want to buy something in the Middle East, and Middle-Eastern clients want to buy something in China, we are the go-between because the Singapore rep (reputation) is there,' Mr Yeo said.

The firm's international expertise is further strengthened by its tie-up with international law practice Clifford Chance.

Last year, Wong Partnership advised 43 M&A deals worth some US$4.76 billion, 251 per cent higher than the previous year's US$1.36 billion, and has been involved in a quarter of initial public offerings launched in the last three years.

The firm also acted for EMEAP, a coalition of the central banks and monetary authorities of 10 Asia-Pacific member countries, in the establishment and initial public offering of the ABF Singapore Bond Index Fund, which is the first Singapore bond tracker fund to be listed on the Singapore Exchange. The fund raised a total of $456 million in its initial public offering.