About

Heading the M&A legal team of Tencent, one of the largest internet companies in the world, Yan Li has gained enviable recognition in the Chinese in-house market for his prolific success in completing large deals since he joined in 2011. In 2013 he completed a strategic cooperation with Sogou worth $448m for a 36.5% equity stake in the search engine developer. This was the first in a series of ground-breaking deals that was heralded as both legally innovative and strategically important for Tencent and the internet industry in China. The following year, Li and his team secured a multi-billion transaction to merge Tencent’s own e-commerce operations with JD.com for a stake of approximately 20%. Reflecting on the deal, Li says: ‘It was, at the time, the largest deal we undertook and changed the e-commerce landscape in China’. The acquisitions made by the company have continued to increase in value and ambition and in 2016 Tencent completed the $8.6bn acquisition of Supercell using another innovative structure. Over his time in the role, Li has expanded the team from a handful of lawyers to 16 experts providing the requisite legal support for Tencent’s portfolio growth worldwide. ‘This has helped Tencent tremendously as it contributes to our confidence that we can negotiate and execute complex cross-border transactions on a world-class level’, he says. The scale of such important deals requires that Li works closely with Tencent’s senior management who ‘pay close attention to our advice and respect our role and the value we provide to the company’. In overcoming challenging regulatory changes in China, Li ensures his team ‘keep their ear close to the ground’ and work closely with regulators and other parties to find solutions and compromises. His advice to fellow in-house lawyers is simple: ‘always be business-minded but do not forget the legal principles’. Prior to joining Tencent, Li practiced law at international law firm O’Melveny & Myers in its Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Shanghai offices, focusing on M&A, private equity and venture capital and other cross-border transactions in China and United States.