UK-headquartered Stephenson Harwood has strengthened its private capital and funds offering with the additions of Jay Tai in Singapore and Ren Yong in Hong Kong. They were most recently partners at Proskauer Rose.

The firm has also hired private equity and investment funds lawyers Carol Fan and Lijuan Hou as of counsel in Hong Kong and Shanghai, respectively.

Earlier this year, Proskauer began drastically reducing its Greater China presence. It closed its Beijing office, and currently has two lawyers - and no partner - in Hong Kong. 

Tai advises global and regional investors in private equity transactions, M&A, fundraisings, financings, restructurings and liquidity events across Asia Pacific and the Middle East, with a focus in recent years on secondary transactions in the Asian private equity space.

Meanwhile, Yong advises fund sponsors, investors and managers on fund formation, administration, compliance, portfolio investment, and Investment Company Act- and Investment Advisers Act-related issues. He joined Proskauer in 2013, prior to which he worked at Mayer Brown, Ropes & Gray and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

"The secondaries market across Asia has been developing at pace. We are seeing a significant appetite among existing, and new, private equity clients, sponsors and financial institutions for high-quality legal advice in a market which is relatively under-served in Asia at the moment,” said Tom Platts, head of M&A, Southeast Asia at Stephenson Harwood, in a statement.

With the new additions, Stephenson Harwood has 22 partners in Singapore and 21 in Hong Kong.