About

Credit Suisse’s Asia Pacific investment banking and capital markets (IBCM) division is renowned in financial circles for its effectiveness, underpinned by the support of a top-quality legal team. Director Adrian Yeo is based in Singapore, and reports into managing director and head of its Asia Pacific investment banking and capital markets legal team David Chu who is based in Hong Kong; the team is split between these two locations. Yeo explains its responsibilities as follows: ‘The team advises Credit Suisse’s Asia Pacific IBCM business on all legal matters, including on transactions and products the business engages in. Such transactions and products include capital markets transactions where Credit Suisse acts as an underwriter or dealer manager, private placements where Credit Suisse acts as a placement agent, and M&A and other advisory mandates where Credit Suisse acts as a financial advisor. The team also works and advises on cross-divisional initiatives within the Credit Suisse Group’. The team’s work has translated into some significant transactions recently, with Yeo providing some examples of these including ‘Sea Limited’s US$884m US IPO, the largest ever US and internet IPO by a Southeast Asian issuer; Vincom Retail’s US$709m fully marketed initial equity offering, the largest ever equity offering in Vietnam; and the US$5bn sale of Equis Pte Ltd to Global Infrastructure Partners, which will be the largest renewable energy generation acquisition in history’. Advising that the team strives to be ‘partners and strategic and trusted advisors’ to Credit Suisse at all times, Chu has this to say about the team’s success: ‘Credit Suisse has a market-leading IBCM franchise in Southeast Asia. This is a result of the consistent and large number of significant and innovative transactions that Credit Suisse engages in in the region. Our team has been involved in each of these transactions; considering the volume and complexity of the business and transactions that we cover, we believe that we are a lean, efficient and highly skilled team of lawyers’.