Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow represents a range of established and growing fund managers and investors across Southeast Asia. It is known for its expertise in real estate, private equity and venture capital, along with its burgeoning presence in credit funds. With its strong emphasis on real estate funds, it has developed extensive experience in data centre and logistics funds. It has also achieved further growth in clients from Thailand and Malaysia. Kelvin Poa and Derek Kwan co-head the Singapore investment funds team, which includes local principal Jens Carle, who is noted for bespoke club deals and global discretionary funds.
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘The Bakers team function as our 'in-house' lawyers and guide us through legal issues related to fund documentation as well as on specific investments made by the fund. The same team of lawyers has been with us since inception of our business, and they understand our requirements very well. They are very thoughtful and clearly outline the benefits and risks on issues. Turnaround time on issues is very good.’
‘Our key point of contact is Kelvin Poa. He has been taking care of the legal needs of our business since inception, helping us think through structures for the fund. Kelvin is knowledgeable, thorough and reliable. We get very good service and advice from him. He understands our business and requirements and this is factored into the outputs. Turnaround time is very good.’
‘The team is cohesive and works at pace. They are well-led and thoroughly commercial with a good understanding of which points are nice to have rather than essential. When work passes between them due to leave or other work demands, the handover has been seamless and this has also been the case when a team member has left the firm.’
‘They are friendly, commercial, hard-working and focused on our achievement of our objectives. Hard to distinguish any team member that I work with as they are all good, but Kelvin Poa and Wei Sheng Lau are both great business partners to work with.’
‘We have engaged BM for somewhat complicated fund structure where we have to involve tax, compliance, and fund experts. We’re impressed with the coordination among several units of BM that come together to deliver the recommendations for us.’
‘Each team demonstrate their expertise very well, and we have received a good recommendation regarding the fund structure. When we want to seek opinion from another team that is not part of the engagement, the individuals we work with are able to pull such a person in and support us beyond the scope. So, we feel they put our objectives first before engagement.’
Key clients
- ESR Group
- Gaw Capital Partners
- Keppel Capital and Alpha Investment Partners
- Vertex Ventures
- Vickers Venture Partners
- Godrej Fund Management
- Eastbridge Partners
- Gateway Partners
- 500 Global
- APG Asset Management (APG)
- Sime Darby Property
- Adams Street Partners
- Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) (KWAP)
- Siam Commercial Bank, together with SCB 10X
- PTT Public Company Limited
Work highlights
- Acted as the international and Singapore counsel to ESR on the formation of ESR Data Centre Fund I, ESR's first data centre focused private fund.
- Acted as the international and Singapore counsel to AIP, the private real estate fund management arm of Keppel Capital, on the formation of Keppel Data Centre Fund II.
- Acted as the international, Singapore and tax counsel to Vertex Ventures on the formation of Vertex SEA Fund V.
Lawyers
Practice head
The lawyer(s) leading their teams.
Kelvin Poa, Derek Kwan