Simpson Thacher & Bartlett is relaunching in Singapore to capitalise on the city-state’s growing importance as a dealmaking hub, more than 20 years after closing its office there.
The new office will advise sponsors on private equity, funds, M&A, real estate, energy and infrastructure and digital infrastructure matters. It will be led by veteran Simpson Thacher partners Ian Ho and Tony King, who have been named co-heads of the firm’s Asia private equity practice and will relocate to Singapore from Hong Kong and New York, respectively.
Also resident in Singapore will be two new incoming partners – Theodore Heng, formerly a principal at Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow, and Carolyn Wong, a counsel at Latham & Watkins. Heng focuses on cross‑border private equity and M&A deals across Asia-Pacific, particularly in the real asset and infrastructure as well as technology and services sectors, while Wong focuses on M&A of energy and infrastructure assets, large-scale joint ventures and project development work.
Singapore-qualified private funds partner Tony Liu will also relocate from Hong Kong to lead the funds practice in Singapore, working with the head of the firm’s Asia funds practice, Adam Furber.
Noting Simpson Thacher had been active in Asia for 35 years, firm chair, Alden Millard, said the new office “enhances our ability to support clients across Southeast Asia and strengthens our capacity to serve clients in one of the world’s most dynamic financial and commercial centres”.
The firm has nearly 100 lawyers in Asia across Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo and now Singapore, meaning it has one of the largest on‑the‑ground teams of any US law firm in the region.
The firm previously had a small Singapore office focused on project finance, M&A and corporate restructuring that it shuttered in 2003, six years after its launch, citing a need to consolidate operations due to sustained weakness in Southeast Asian economies.
The closure came amid a broader trend of US and UK firms downsizing their presence in Asia that also saw Orrick, White & Case and legacy Shearman & Sterling end their joint ventures with Singapore firms and CMS Cameron McKenna close in Beijing.
More recently, international law firms have been focusing on Singapore as a hub for their Asia operations, drawn by its status as an increasingly important centre for private equity, capital markets and international arbitration, and as they downsize their presence in China amid tightened regulation and simmering political tensions with the West.
Ho commented: “Singapore is a central hub for global investors and multinational businesses. Establishing an office here reinforces our commitment to clients whose most important regional and cross‑border initiatives increasingly touch Singapore.”
Since 2021, firms including Orrick, Quinn Emanuel, Greenberg Traurig, Baker Botts and Goodwin Procter have entered or re-entered the Singapore market, though others have closed their offices in the city-state in the past year, among them Akin and legacy McDermott Will & Emery.
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