Howard Lam Partner LATHAM & WATKINS

Howard Lam, a partner in Latham & Watkins’ Hong Kong office, advises clients across Asia on restructuring, special situations, private credit, and banking finance transactions.

In his restructuring practice, Howard draws on more than two decades of experience to guide all types of parties to a transaction, including creditors, particularly banks and credit funds, debtors, insolvency practitioners and bondholders.

He regularly helps clients resolve a full range of difficult matters, including restructuring, bankruptcy, as well as distressed and other special situations. As a Mandarin and Cantonese speaker, trained in Hong Kong, UK, and Australian law, he brings a multicultural, multijurisdictional perspective to his matters. Familiar with the internal motivations and sensitivities of parties on all sides of a matter, he can help clients choose the best jurisdictions and legal regimes for implementing restructurings.

Most recently, Howard has led a number of high-profile restructuring and leveraged financing transactions, and is recognized as a leading practitioner in this area by Chambers and The Legal 500.

Foster Lee Head of Private Credit GAW CAPITAL

Foster Lee has over 20 years’ experience in direct lending and structured finance across Asia Pacific.

Foster is currently heading the private credit franchise for Gaw Capital and have deployed c. USD1bn since he joined in 2020.

Foster was the head of syndicated finance for China Minsheng Bank and prior to that he worked in multiple direct lending transactions, in particular leveraged finance and assets based lending across Hong Kong, Australia and Japan in GE Capital.

During his banking career, he was on the board of directors of the Asia Pacific Loan Market Association and as a member of the China Committee and the Leveraged & Acquisition Finance Committee of the association.

Foster holds a bachelor's degree in commerce from the University of New South Wales and he is a qualified public accountant of CPA Australia.

Ron Thompson Managing Director ALVAREZ & MARSAL

Ron Thompson is a Managing Director of Alvarez & Marsal Asia and leads Asia’s Restructuring Practice. Mr. Thompson is based in Hong Kong.

With close to 30 years of experience in China and Asia, Mr. Thompson brings expertise in finance, credit and restructuring in Asia. Mr. Thompson’s primary expertise lies in financial restructuring and has significant experience acting in the capacity as a creditor, investor and advisor related with in court restructurings and liquidations as well as out of court processes or government influenced restructurings. Mr. Thompson has extensive experience as an investor in sourcing, valuing, acquiring and managing NPL portfolios in addition to having managed the sale process of individual credits as well as non-performing loan portfolios. Mr. Thompson, in the capacity as an investor and as a board member, has participated in multiple operational turnaround situations. Mr. Thompson’s has broad industry expertise including fast moving consumer goods, power generation, metals and mining, construction, manufacturing, telecom and technology and financial institutions.

Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Thompson was at Standard Chartered where he headed the workout team in Taiwan, worked in the Mezzanine and Alternative Solutions Team for Principle Finance and most recently was the Chief Credit Officer for China. Prior to Standard Chartered, Mr. Thompson worked in corporate finance at Bear Stearns and Bank of China International and oversaw the China business for Clearwater Capital.

Mr. Thompson graduated Magna Cum Laude from Colby College, studied Chinese literature at Peking University and holds an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Mr. Thompson is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Sophia Xia Managing Director, Co-head of China Restructuring HOULIHAN LOKEY

Ms. Xia joined Houlihan Lokey in 2012 and is currently the Co-head of China Restructuring, responsible for deal sourcing, execution and staff management. She has extensive experience advising clients in Asia on restructuring situations, M&A and capital raising across different industries. Her recent transactions include company-side mandates for China Evergrande, Kaisa, Fantasia, Modern Land, Sunac, Tahoe and Luckin Coffee; and creditor-side mandates for Shimao Group, Yestar Healthcare, Sichuan Languang, GCL Energy, Hilong Group, Huachen Energy, China Shanshui Cement, Winsway Enterprises, Bumi Resources, Paladin Energy and Oro Negro. Before joining HL, Ms. Xia was at J.P. Morgan’s investment banking division where she focused on M&A and capital raising. Ms. Xia started her career as an analyst at Morgan Stanley in New York.

 Ms. Xia graduated magna cum laude from Duke University with a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics, and a Certificate in Markets and Management Studies. She is a native speaker of Mandarin and Cantonese and fluent in English.

Ping Zhou Co-Managing Editor, APAC DEBTWIRE

Ping Zhou leads a China journalists team writing distressed and event-driven corporate credits for Asia high yield fix income investors and restructuring advisories, covering both onshore and offshore Chinese restructuring and liquidation situations for Debtwire APAC since 2013. She started her journalist career with Financial Times in 2011 and won SOPA 2012 award in Hong Kong for breaking news on Wukan Guangdong protests. She has Korean literature background and lived in Pyongyang, Seoul, before moving to Hong Kong.