Last Friday the Southeast Asian legal community convened at The Fullerton Hotel in Singapore for the ALB Southeast Asia Law Awards 2011. Now in its 8th year, the Awards present a unique opportunity to acknowledge the achievements of the previous twelve months: the market-transforming deals, the top lawyers and the top firms.
There were many contenders for the Singapore M&A deal of the year but our panel of judges came to a consensus that the Khazanah/Fortis competing takeover offer for Parkway was the deserving winner. The 'Big Four' of Singapore were heavily involved in the deal, which witnessed the acquisition of Southeast Asia’s largest hospital chain. Rajah & Tann advised Fortis in its S$3.2 billion offer, prompting Khazanah to revise its partial offer to a voluntary general offer at S$3.95 per share. Fortis then decided to sell its 24.9% stake in Parkway to Khazanah for approximately S$1.12 billion. This closely watched deal was a rare example of a competing takeover offer between a state investor and a private enterprise. With the eventual offer valuing Parkway at approximately S$4.5 billion, it was also one of the biggest deals in Singapore in the last decade. Drew & Napier role as counsel to the joint financial advisers to RHC Healthcare in this deal should not be overlooked, as with WongPartnership’s role in advising Parkway Holdings in respect of the competing offers made by Khazanah and the Fortis Group and Allen & Gledhill’s role as legal counsel to Khazanah as well as the financial advisers on the deal.
With strong performances from many firms this year in the energy & resources category, the team from Latham and Watkins has come up tops. E&R-related deals around the region also made headlines at the Awards, with the Hongsa Mine-Mouth Power project (SEA deal of the year, project finance deal of the year) and the BP Acquisition of Oil and Gas Blocks in India deal (SEA M&A deal of the year) taking the prize home.
Allen & Gledhill was well represented on that night, sweeping the medal tally with eight wins. These include equity market deal of the year, with its role in the Global logistics IPO, Islamic Finance Deal of the Year, Tax & Trusts, real estate, international arbitration, IP law firm of the year and equity market deal of the year.
The winner of the construction law firm of the year is new entry Pinsent Masons MPillay, who ex-Rajah & Tann partner Mohan Pillay formed a joint law venture partnership as recent as July 2010.
In the in-house categories, Deutsche Bank took home the investment bank in-house team of the year – rounding up an excellent run this year with two other awards in the debt market deal of the year category as well as the IPP Financial Advisers Award Singapore M&A deal of the year.
CapitaLand’s Low Sai Choy took home the Singapore In-house lawyer of the year prize for the energy and structure he brings to his team and Rachel Eng from WongPartnership has won the gong for best managing partner. Eng is also the first female managing partner to take home this accolade.ALB
