King & Wood Mallesons
The legal landscape in China around the securitization industry is often hard to navigate. But King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) stands out from its peers. The law firm provided legal services for 254 securitization transactions with a total value of Rmb296.2 billion ($45.4 billion) during the awards period, according to Wind data.
The firm has 50 or so employees focusing on the securitization industry. Among them, eight are partners. The team is led by firm partners Chen Fushen and Hu Zhe. KWM’s biggest advantage over its competitors is its ability and willingness to provide legal services to deals with innovative structures. The law firm says it participated in roughly a third of ABS transactions that were a first in the market.
The Chinese securitization industry saw some long-waited breakthroughs during the awards period. One example is a Rmb783 million CMBS transaction originated by Tianjin Zhong Bei Wang Asset Management Co.