Team size: 20

What are the most significant cases or transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

In 2021 and 2022, we were involved in the acquisition of ARA Asset Management limited by ESR Group limited in a US$ 19bn cash and shares transaction. At the time, I was the general counsel of ARA, and my team acted on the sell side of the transaction. ARA raises, manages and advises public and private investment funds that invest across traditional real estate assets, private real estate credit and infrastructure. Given ARA’s global platform, thanks to its operations in Asia Pacific, Europe and the US, the transaction was a highly complicated one that involved numerous stakeholders, regulators, and multiple complex issues. Prior to the acquisition, ARA was already the largest real assets manager in the Asia Pacific, and the transaction created the third largest listed real estate investment manager globally. The transaction was nominated ‘deal of the year: Asia’ at the 2021 PERE Global Awards.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

Collaboration tools such as Teams were indispensable in facilitating work-from-home during the Covid-19 lockdowns and will continue to be critical.

More specifically, in relation to ESR’s business, we are planning to employ a smart database for fund documents which have the ability to pull together all the relevant provisions within an agreement and across all related documents for a user who may need to figure out how a particular issue is governed or perhaps to inform a negotiating position for a new agreement.

Technology has the potential to be also applied to other types of documents such as sale and purchase agreements. The value of this technology is its capacity, among other things, to help save time, reduce incidences of human error and achieve better outcomes in contractual negotiations.

As we enter the next decade, what skills will a corporate legal team need to succeed in the modern in-house industry?

The core requirements for an effective in-house counsel have not changed. To make appropriate judgments during his work, he must have a firm understanding of his organisation’s mission and business. He must be able to strike a balance between achieving commercial objectives and managing legal risk.

In the increasingly VUCA world, an in-house counsel must hone his ability to anticipate changes and become ever nimbler in tackling altered circumstances. Although such challenges are universal, I am mindful that lawyers are generally trained to seek answers in precedents and may be at greater risk of uncritically applying old paradigms to novel subjects. Developing an awareness of this risk would be an excellent start to addressing the risk.