Latham & Watkins is pleased to announce that seasoned corporate lawyer Wonsuk (“Steve”) Kang has joined the firm as a partner. Kang advises companies on cross-border investments and has significant experience helping companies invest in the Korean market, as well as advising Korean companies on their outbound investments. Kang joins Latham & Watkins from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer where he was a counsel in the Hong Kong office.
Kang joins Latham & Watkins in Hong Kong before moving to Seoul, where he will lead the corporate practice. “We are thrilled to have Steve join us. His experience strongly complements our existing team and the combination of Steve and counsel Helena Kim in Seoul will drive our Korean corporate practice to new heights,” said Joseph Bevash, Office Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins in Seoul.
Kang has more than 12 years of experience working on corporate, banking and capital markets transactions with a focus on South Korea. During his career, Kang has worked on a number of landmark transactions in South Korea, including multi-billion dollar acquisitions and joint ventures in the technology and financial services sectors.
Josef Athanas, Office Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins in Hong Kong, said: “Steve’s addition to our Hong Kong office and the firm’s Korea practice further reinforces our commitment to our clients throughout the region and to providing the best expertise to the Korean market. Over years of advising on high-profile deals, Steve has demonstrated an entrepreneurial, collaborative spirit that perfectly aligns with our culture.”
Simon Cooke, a partner in Latham’s Hong Kong office and Global Co-Chair of the firm’s Private Equity Practice, added: “Steve further enhances our M&A capabilities in Asia, strengthening our ability to serve Korean clients on their outbound investments as well as clients looking to invest in the Korean market, including our regional and international private equity clients. He adds more depth to an already strong private equity and cross-border M&A team across Asia.”
With more than two decades of experience advising Korean companies and financial institutions, the opening of Latham’s Seoul office in 2016 marked an important milestone for the firm’s Asia practice. Latham’s Seoul office solidifies the firm’s market-leading project finance practice and further expands its mergers and acquisitions, private equity, leveraged finance, debt and equity capital markets, and disputes and international arbitration practices in Asia.
“Seoul is a key hub for finance, commerce and manufacturing in East Asia with strong and growing importance across the region,” commented Bevash. “Steve is a top-notch lawyer with an outstanding reputation for client service and strong leadership, and he brings in-depth knowledge and deep ties to business in Korea to the firm. Steve’s success is built on ardent drive and earnest execution, and he will be a key business driver for our transactional and disputes practices in South Korea and Asia more widely.”
“Latham & Watkins has significant resources and a formidable team in the Asia-Pacific region and real momentum behind its global growth strategy. I was attracted to the firm’s clear vision to build one of the leading cross-border M&A practices and am excited to contribute to the firm’s ongoing success in Asia,” said Kang.
Kang, a native Korean, earned his BA in Communication from Yonsei University in 1992 followed by an MA and PhD in Communication from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1995 and 1998, respectively, where he was a J. William Fulbright Scholar and William F. Vilas Trust Estate Fellow. From 1999–2002, he was a professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Thereafter, he earned a BA in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford in 2004.
Source: www.lw.com
