Morgan Lewis today welcomes Edward Bennett as an asset management, corporate, and mergers and acquisition partner, further boosting the firm’s capabilities in advising clients on fund formation, asset management, and transactional matters both within Asia and throughout the world. Mr. Bennett, whose prior work with a global law firm has focused on cross-border strategic and investment transactions in Southeast Asia, will be based in Singapore.
Mr. Bennett represents clients on private equity, mergers and acquisitions, capital markets secondary buyout, and refinancing matters. He has worked extensively on the structuring and formation of closed-ended buyout, infrastructure, and mezzanine funds; the secondary transfer of fund interests and subsequent closings; and the carried interest structuring for investment funds.
“Edward will contribute greatly to the asset management, corporate, commercial, financial, and disputes practice for which our Singapore office has been widely recognized,” said Firm Chair Jami McKeon. “With Edward on our team, Morgan Lewis will further enhance its services to clients in this key gateway to Asia.”
Mr. Bennett’s major engagements include taking a lead role in a Philippines conglomerate’s $610 million acquisition of a multinational oil giant’s subsidiaries in Malaysia. He was also one of the lead lawyers in the largest single retail real estate deal in India involving the $300 million acquisition of an initial seed portfolio of three retail assets.
“Edward’s deep background in private investment funds, combined with a focus on Southeast Asia, makes him an extraordinary addition to our practice,” said Louis Singer, head of Morgan Lewis’s investment management practice. “We are very glad to have him join us, and I am confident that he will be of remarkable benefit to our clients.”
The addition of Mr. Bennett builds on Morgan Lewis’s recent expansion in the Asia-Pacific region and its novel combination with The Stamford Law Firm in Singapore in 2015. Earlier this month, Morgan Lewis expanded significantly its China corporate, capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and private equity practice with the addition of 13 partners and 25 lawyers and legal professionals in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai. Last year, the firm expanded its mainland China representative office in Beijing and branch office of Morgan Lewis Consulting in Shanghai with a team of more than 25 lawyers and legal professionals. In 2014, Morgan Lewis expanded its Tokyo office with the addition of the leading asset management regulatory practice from Bingham McCutchen.
Morgan Lewis’s globally acclaimed Singapore office represents clients in a wide range of local and cross-border business transactions and finance restructuring, asset management, dispute resolution, and international arbitration in sectors including banking and finance, commodities, construction, insurance, manufacturing, minerals, oil and gas, and telecommunications.
The firm’s global investment management practice advises clients on formation, investment, transactional, regulatory, and compliance issues. Clients include venture capital, private equity, and hedge funds; banks and trust companies; public and private pension funds; fiduciaries and consultants; insurance companies; and fund administrators.
Source: www.morganlewis.com
