The Legal 500 > Asia Pacific > China > Private equity: PRC firms

Fangda Partners advises on the full range of private equity-driven M&A transactions, representing private equity investors, consortiums of private equity and strategic buyers, seller, financing providers, independent directors and independent financial advisers of listed companies. The practice's expertise spans exiting investments together with financings at different stages, including seed, start-up and subsequent equity financing and bridge loan arrangements. Doris Tang advised Local Services Holding, the holding company of Ele.me and Koubei, on its latest $3bn equity financing with Alibaba, SoftBank, and other third-party investors; and Jeffrey Ding and Michael Han advised Anta Sports and Chinese private equity house FountainVest Partners on their €4.6bn acquisition of Amer Sports. Norman Zhong, Jonathan Zhou, Helen Fan and Peng Tan are also highly regarded.

Han Kun Law Offices is very well known for assisting prominent names in the private equity and venture capital industry with high-value, complex investment and fundraising matters. It has represented over 100 foreign and domestic private equity and venture capital firms, and successfully closes hundreds of investments per year. Among them, Chaoying Li and Sheng Li acted for the lead investor SoftBank Vision Fund in its $1.9bn financing of Manbang Group and handled Guazi.com's Series D financing transaction, in which SoftBank Vision Fund invested $1.5bn in the company. Yijun Chao and Ying Yang advised Missfresh on its Series E financing from over 11 new investors, including financial and strategic investors.

Zhong Lun Law Firm handles the full remit of private equity work including fund formation, fundraising, investment, project management and fund exit.  Anthony Zhao advised SoftBank Group on its $6bn investment in We Company; Lefan Gong assisted CDH Investments with its pre-IPO investment in Ascentage Pharma Group International; and Victor Yu advised Supermonkey Fitness on its Series D financing by Yao Capital and Starquest Capital. Luke Zhang, Kejun Guo, Catherine Chen and Ting Gao are highly recommended. The team is also 'excellent at associate level', in which John Shen, Raphael Liu,  Summer Huang and Roy Zheng are noted.

Global Law Office 'gives very constructive advice' and it 'offers clients best solutions that are both compliant and highly practical'. Its client roster features a number of global leading private equity houses including Warburg Pincus which it recently handled its Series D financing of Mofang (China) Service Group. It also advises the invested companies in a broad range of sectors in their financing transactions. Shenzhen-based Cheng Li and Jihong He advised Hive Box on its Series A+ financing round. Steven Yu has over a decade experience of advising international and domestic private equity and venture capital firms, as well as e-commerce giants in their investments in China-based TMT companies. Yu advised Tencent on its Series D preferred share investment in Kuaikan World (Cayman). Michael Yu advised CITIC Capital on its RMB3.65bn investment in Beijing Century Kangrui Medical Management. Other recommended individuals are managing partner Jinrong Liu and Huawei Lin.

JunHe LLP's broad client base includes private equity and venture capital funds, general partnerships and limited partnerships of funds and fund management companies, as well as investment companies and banks. The team is particularly active in automotive and pharmaceutical sectors. Highlights include advising a consortium of investors including CPE China Fund, CICC Capital and Baring Private Equity Asia on the $1bn Series A financing for JD Health, acted for Advantech Capital on its $102m Series B financing for TOT Biopharm Company, and advised Miniso on its RMB1bn investment by Tencent and Hillhouse Capital Group. Binxue Sang is a prominent practitioner within the team which also includes Nelson Zhou who has notable experience in leveraged buy-out transactions, and Wenjun Jiang who handles private equity investment and restructuring transactions.

Commerce & Finance Law Office 's recent caseload include a steady flow of multimillion-dollar financing mandates, representing both domestic and foreign private equity funds, as well as the invested companies.  Xinyang Zhang and Jianhai Luan are recommended.

Haiwen & Partners is widely considered as 'a trusted adviser', particularly by US investment funds. Recommended for fund formation, portfolio investments and management as well as exits, the team counts a number of well-known domestic and international private equity funds as its major clients. The 20-partner team operates from its Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong offices, and includes a number of experienced practitioners with a solid record in handling big-ticket private equity and venture capital financing and investment, M&A and capital markets transactions. Jiping Zhang and Shuangjuan Wei are key names to note.

Jingtian & Gongcheng reinforced its position in the China private equity market with the hire of the highly regarded Victor Wang and six other experienced practitioners from AllBright Law Offices. The team is regularly instructed by domestic and foreign companies on the full cycle of private equity financing spanning angle round to pre-IPO. Among its recent mandates, Zhengzheng Hu advised Know Box on a series of financing from investors including Delian Capital, BAI GmbH, Source Code Capital and YF Fund, and assisted Mininglamp Technology, a unicorn enterprise in the field of big data and AI with various rounds of financing; Jinjin Chen counts Missfresh as a major client which the team assisted with over ten rounds of its financing; and Yusheng Ye handled Fengchao's Series A+ financing. Capital markets specialist Xiang Gao and Xiaojin Zheng who joined from Zhong Lun Law Firm are further names to note.

Llinks Law Offices advises domestic and international angel investors, and venture capital, private equity and industry funds as well  as strategic investors. It also assists domestic and international companies from a broad mix of  industries during their rounds of fund raisings from initial start-up stage to pre-IPO stage. Recent highlights include advising Shanghai Xinjin Venture Capital Centre on its investment in Fangjing Culture Studio (Beijing), and acting for Autojome on its strategic investment in TTP, an online auction platform for second hand vehicles. Colin Shi and Selena She are names to note.

Private equity and venture capital boutique firm Shihui Partners strengthened its position in the market with the hire of Steven Zhao and Darren Liang from Fangda Partners and Han Kun Law Offices respectively, followed by the hire of two senior associates. The team is particularly active in the technology space and has seen an increasing caseload in advising red-chip companies' return to the PRC market. Demonstrating this, George Niu and Vicky Gong advised JD Group on the restructuring and $1bn Series A financing of JD Healthcare, and acted for JD Logistics on its $2.5bn Series A financing from a large consortium of investors, including Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia China, China Merchants Group, Tencent, China Life among others. Miranda Jiang counts many start-ups as her major clients and is recommended alongside Hilda Li and Zan Zhu who was promoted to the partnership in 2018.

DaHui Lawyers has notable experience in RMB funds, US funds, parallel funds, and cross-border investment funds and it advises private equity, venture capital and hedge funds on domestic and cross-border investment transactions. It continues to handle a number of high value work for clients in the TMT and healthcare sectors. Demonstrating this, Zheng Zha and the 'detail-oriented' Chris Chen advised Viva Biotech on a number of series seed and A financings in drug discovery start-ups in the US and China;  Julia Dai assisted Mobike Japan with investment from Line, Japan's most popular messaging app; and Brendon Wu acted for the lead investor GSR Ventures on its investment in LSMcook and handled BluePay's Series C financing, invested by Source Code.

DeHeng Law Offices regularly handles big-ticket fund formation and investment transactions. Weifeng Guo and Zengli Li are key names to note from its Beijing and Shanghai offices respectively, which also includes Hongbao Mu focuses on cross-border private equity, market-oriented debt-to-equity swap, perpetual bonds mandates, and Zhiwei Hou who recently advised China Internet Investment Fund on its RMB250m Series C and C3 financing for Beijing Unisound Information Technology.

Jincheng Tongda & Neal advises leading venture capital and private equity funds and strategic investors on their investments in the China market. Its practice spans fund structuring and raising, compliance, portfolio company investment, and exits through domestic and overseas IPOs and M&A activities. Lingyan Peng handled CDH Investments' RMB500m financing in Hainan Gaodeng Technology and assisted Cloud Walk, an AI-products supplier for PRC Banks, with completing its RMB1bn Series B+ financing; Annie Wu advised Guoxin Guotong Fund, a Chinese sovereign fund, in its proposed acquisition of 33.3% equity interest in Redexis Gas; and Wenwen Zhao advised GP Investment Fund on its financing of RMB508m of eight Chinese technology companies.

Merits & Tree Law Offices further strengthened its position in the market with the opening of its Shanghai office in 2018. The group has solid experience in fund formation, fund raising and fund compliance, private equity investment and financing as well as red-chip return and equity incentive transactions. Founding partner Youyuan Jin heads the group from Beijing office, and acts for investment institutions and financing enterprises in a large number of investment, financing and M&A projects at different stages and rounds. Jin advised Riverhead Capital on its RMB1bn financing forShiqiao Group. Yueping Zhong and Shanghai-based Jiang Tao are also recommended.

Tian Yuan Law Firm's clients spans a broad spectrum of industries, including education, healthcare, TMT, fintech, new energy and Media which it advises both the private equity and venture capital firms as well as the invested companies in high value investment, restructuring and M&A transactions. Recent highlights include assisted Sequoia Capital with its participation in VIPKID's Series D+ financing and advising Sequoia Capital on its Series C financing for Burning Rock Biotech, a Chinese company specialising in next-generation sequencing diagnostics solutions for precision medicine in oncology. Jiayun Xie, Zhihua Xia andXiaohui Zhu are highly recommended.

AllBright Law Offices is singled out for its rich expertise in trust funds space. Recent highlights saw Yanchun Zhao advising Shanghai international trust on establishing an equity trust plan, and assisting Anda Biopharmaceutical Development Corporation with its seed financing from a major shareholder of a listed company.

AnJie Law Firm advises private equity and venture capital firms as well as corporate companies in TMT, education and gaming sectors. Jeremy Dai advised Shanghai Jiuye Supply Chain in its successful strategic investment from Charoen Pokphand Group and acted for LB Investment in its series B investment in Chuanpuke, a sino-foreign joint venture engaging in food court management business. Shanghai-based Hang Cai is another name to note, and recently assisted Morningside Venture Capital with its RMB500m Series A+ and RMB4bn B+ financing of Xiaopeng Motors.

Guantao Law Firm advises private equity, hedge funds, real estate and venture capital funds as well as fund of funds, investment firms, sponsors, institutional investors and portfolio companies. Managing partner Liguo Cui counts TechFaith Wireless Communication Technology, Acorn International and ARC Capital Holdings as his key clients, and Alan Huang handles fund formation, financing and investment transactions.

Chengdu-headquartered Tahota Law Firm's client roster features a large number of local and regional state-backed funds and asset management firms which it advises on a range of fund formation, financing, and exit transactions. Fei Xiang recently advised Chengdu Huaxing Pharmacy Chain on its investment made by Gaoji Pharmaceutical company, a subsidiary of Hillhouse Capital Group.