Kirkland & Ellis has hired Meng Ding as a corporate and securities partner in Hong Kong from Davis Polk & Wardwell, where he was an associate.
Ding focuses his practice on corporate and securities matters, including representation of issuers and underwriters on a wide range of equity and debt capital markets transactions in Asia and the United States. He also advises on exchange reporting, corporate governance and other compliance matters.
During his eight years at Davis Polk, he was involved in Agricultural Bank of China’s $22 billion IPO in Hong Kong in 2010, then the world’s largest-ever listing.
Before becoming a lawyer, Ding, who holds a PhD in physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked at technology companies AMD and IBM.
Both Kirkland and Davis Polk have been busy with deals in Hong Kong. Last year, Kirkland’s Hong Kong team advised on the $11.6 billion go-private deal of warehouse operator Global Logistic Properties (GLP), COSCO Shipping’s $6.3 billion offer for Orient Overseas, and HNA’s $1 billion buy of logistics group CWT. Davis Polk was also involved in the GLP deal, as well as the $1.1 billion listing of Tencent’s China Literature and Alibaba’s $2.6 billion retail acquisition.
