Mergermarket M&A Forum Hong Kong 2023
The premier M&A forum in Hong Kong
The Four Seasons Hotel, Hong Kong SAR & Online
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Tim Burroughs is managing editor of Asian Venture Capital Journal, having joined the publication in May 2011. He is responsible for all editorial content put out under the AVCJ brand, including Asian Venture Capital Journal, AVCJtv, AVCJ Awards and AVCJ.com. Tim previously spent five years at China Economic Review, serving as editor-in-chief and then editorial director. Located in Greater China since 2003, during which time he has lived in Beijing, Qingdao and Hong Kong, Tim has been a China-based contributor for publications including The Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph, BBC and China Daily. Prior to moving to China, he trained and worked as a journalist in the UK. He was honored at the Society of Publishers in Asia awards in 2007, 2008 and 2010, and at the State Street Institutional Press Awards - Asia in 2012.
Alex is currently VP Strategy & Development, Asia Pacific for Amcor, a $15 billion ASX-listed global leading supplier of flexible and rigid plastic packaging to well-known FMCG and Pharma brands. Before seconded to the current management role, he was Vice President, Head of Asia M&A when he completed nine acquisitions and led numerous others in Emerging Asia and Middle East/Africa for Amcor.
He has over 15 years of experience in leading M&A transactions and managing acquired businesses in Asia as corporate & financial owner and as advisor. He launched the ex-Japan Asia private equity investment business of leading Japanese buyout fund Advantage Partners and closed several investments that generated attractive capital gain for the fund. While at Coca-Cola and McKinsey Asia Corporate Finance Group, he led transactions of various sizes across Asia. He also advised private equity funds and corporations in Europe and Asia on investment and post-merger restructuring during his tenure at Bain & Company.
Gary has over 25 years of investments and banking experience. At SHK & Co he leads the Private Equity team where he focuses on Fund, Co-Investments and Direct Investments. The team has a global mandate with a focus in the areas of financial services, healthcare, technology and consumer.
Prior to SHK & Co, he led the alternative investments team at Mirae Assets covering both private equity and private credit. He started his career as an investment banker leading teams at institutions including Macquarie and Barclays.
Marco is currently the Group Head of Legal at CLSA and is also an executive director of a Hong Kong listed company, CLSA Premium Limited (HKEx Stock Code: 6877). Before joining CLSA, Marco spent approximately 10 years at Morgan Stanley Asia, holding various senior positions including, the Regional COO role of the Private Funds business and the Regional Head of Legal role for both Private Funds and IBD M&A. He was awarded M&A individual of the Year in 2019 by the Association of Corporate Counsel. He was a corporate attorney at Slaughter and May (London and Hong Kong) for more than 7 years prior to that.
Dario is an Executive Director in the AEJ M&A team at Goldman Sachs, based in Hong Kong.
Prior to the current role, Dario worked in various capacities as part of the AEJ IB team in Hong Kong, including across the industrials, real estate and natural resources teams.
Prior to joining Goldman Sachs Hong Kong in 2014, Dario was with the German coverage team at Goldman Sachs in Germany covering a broad range of clients and sectors. Dario holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business Administration from WHU in Vallendar.
Ms Shengyan Fan joined China Everbright Limited in 2009 and is a Managing Director of the Merger & Acquisition Department. She also serves as a Managing Partner of the CEL Catalyst China Israel Fund and a member of the investment committee of the CEL Global Investment Fund and the CEL Catalyst China Israel Fund.
Ms. Fan has 20 years’ experience in direct investment, capital raising and investment banking businesses. Prior to joining CEL, Ms. Fan has held various positions with increasing responsibility at multinational investment banks.
Ms. Fan holds a BA and a BS from Tsinghua University and an MA from the University of Oxford.
Frank Feng is a Managing Director with BPEA EQT focused on the firm’s Cross Border investment strategy. Frank is responsible for BPEA EQT’s APAC sector coverage in corporate and compliance technology and services, and has led the firm’s investments including Vistra, Tricor, and SAI360.
Prior to joining BPEA EQT, Frank was a Vice President at H.I.G. Capital based in Boston, focused on buyout investments in Business Services and Enterprise Software. Frank previously was an Associate at Advent International and began his career at Lazard in New York.
Frank holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Business Administration from Georgetown University
Amy is Managing Director as well as the Chair of ESG Committee at FountainVest Partners (Asia) Limited. FountainVest Partners was founded in 2007 and is a leading Asian private equity fund with offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. Prior to joining FountainVest in late 2019, Amy worked for 4 years as the CEO of Save the Children Hong Kong.
Before Save the Children, Amy spent nearly two decades in financial services with institutions including JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Merrill Lynch, working in the US and Asia, having worked as an investment banker, head of strategy, COO and Head of Regulatory Change Management. Amy is a Board Member of Langdi Pharmaceutical and serves on the ESG Committee of Amer Sports, and the Board of Rädda Barnen Service AB, a Swedish social enterprise focusing on Child Rights in business. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and has an MBA from Columbia University and she was also a Certified Public Accountant qualified in the District of Columbia, USA. Amy is a Hong Kong native and has a 21-year old daughter and a 16-year old son. She is a spiritual practitioner and teaches meditation as a volunteer on a regular basis.
Qiang joined Deutsche Bank Hong Kong in 2011. He was asked to establish the China M&A business in 2013 and lead the origination of cross border M&A, primarily in Industrials, Consumer and TMT sectors.
Prior to joining DB, Qiang worked in UBS in London, Hong Kong and Shanghai across industrials and China coverage.
Qiang graduated from Bocconi University, Italy with Master in Management. He was exchange scholar in Wharton and University of Michigan Ross Business School.
Raymond is the Head of Enterprise Risk Management of Noah Group, with oversight of the enterprise risk management, legal, compliance, corporate governance, and regulatory affairs of the Group’s operations, principal investments, and strategic initiatives around the world.
He has received various industry awards over the years and was recognized as one of the most influential corporate counsels in the Legal 500 GC Powerlist for China and Hong Kong in 2017.
Prior to joining Noah Group, he spent more than 20 years in various senior management, corporate development, and enterprise risk management roles with multinational diversified conglomerates, a leading bulge bracket investment bank, and in private practice with Magic Circle and Wall Street law firms where he focused on capital markets transactions, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, technology, media and telecommunications transactions, strategic initiatives, and principal investments across North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Raymond is a graduate of Columbia Law School, New York, and The Wharton School’s Advanced Management Program for Senior Executive.
Amit Gupta is a founding Partner of TPG NewQuest based in Singapore and oversees the India and Southeast Asia businesses. Amit has more than 20 years of industry experience.
Prior to co-founding TPG NewQuest, he was a Director at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s (BAML) Asia Private Equity group where he led the India business and oversaw investments in the energy and financial services sectors across the Asia Pacific region. Amit has also served in other roles in BAML, including Corporate Principal Investments based in Hong Kong and Investment Banking based in Mumbai.
Prior to working at BAML, Amit was a software engineer based in Mumbai and the United States. Amit has an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, where he was placed on the Director’s Merit List for his performance, and an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from REC Kurukshetra, where he received the University gold medal. Amit is fluent in English and Hindi.
Frank Jin is a Managing Director within Morgan Stanley’s Mergers & Acquisitions Department based in Hong Kong. He is currently the M&A Operations Officer for Asia Pacific.
Frank has over 13 years of experience practicing M&A. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Frank worked in the Mergers & Acquisitions group at Standard Chartered and the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell focusing on M&A transactions and leveraged finance in New York and Hong Kong. Frank is dual qualified as a New York lawyer and Hong Kong solicitor.
Frank received a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto, in Biology and Commerce, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Frank’s M&A practice focuses on China-related transactions as well as those involving listed companies in Hong Kong and other venues.
Edan Lee is a Managing Director of Olympus Capital Asia and joined the Firm in 1998. The Firm is an independent private investment manager that has been successfully investing in middle market companies across Asia for over 20 years. Since its founding in 1997, Olympus Capital Asia has invested more than $2.6 billion of equity capital on behalf of its funds and co-investors in over 65 portfolio companies throughout Asia. The Firm’s private equity strategies center on elevating Sustainable Development objectives including investments in Sustainable Energy/Water, Sustainable Cities, and Sustainable Financial Services.
Prior to joining Olympus Capital Asia, Mr. Lee served as Project Director in China for The AES Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, in the mid-1990s, where he developed and financed some of the most significant foreign invested power projects at the time. Previously, Mr. Lee was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. in the US and in Australia. Mr. Lee holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and BS (Mechanical Engineering) and BA (Economics) degrees from Rice University. Mr. Lee is a member of the Rice School of Engineering Advisory Board and a member of the Executive Committee, Stanford GSB Chapter of Hong Kong.
Nana joined Impax in 2022 and is responsible for leading Impax’s sustainability, stewardship and policy advocacies in Asia-Pacific. Nana researches, prioritizes and organizes ESG engagements with Impax’s investee companies and regulators, manages external sustainability and ESG-related inquiries, and assists in the ongoing development of the Impax proprietary ESG-analysis and methodologies.
Prior to joining Impax, Nana worked as the Research and Project Director at the Asian Corporate Governance Association (ACGA). At ACGA, Nana published five significant reports relating to corporate governance research in Asia. Whilst there, she also presented to the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and the Shenzhen Asset Management Association. Since 2018, Nana has been the Chair of ACGA’s China working group, a role she continues to fill today. Upon joining Impax, Nana remains a Specialist Consultant to ACGA.
Nana has spoken at international conferences hosted by a number of financial institutions and international organisations including the OECD, EMIA, GRI, CLSA, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Macquarie, ACGA, ICGN, IEEFA, RI Japan, Forbes, AmCham Shanghai, BritCham Shanghai and the CFA Institute.Nana also sits on the Financial Capital Committee of the International Corporate Governance Network, the ESG Committee of the Women in Finance Asia and the Caixin China ESG30 Forum.Nana has an MBA from the University of Chicago (Honors), a Master of Finance from the University of Hong Kong (Dean’s List), and a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales (Distinction). She is a CFA charterholder and has finished the HKICPA Qualification Program
Shaun is Co-President, Partner and member of the management committee of HOPU Investments, an Asia alternative asset manager with US$20billion AUM that specializes in creating proprietary investments driven by its unique network and strong fundamental analysis capabilities. Its industry focuses include consumer, technology, healthcare, financial services, and logistics/real estate. He is also concurrently Head of HOPU-ARM Innovation Fund, a private equity fund set up jointly by HOPU and Arm Technologies investing in deep technology opportunities.
Shaun has over 20 years’ experience in private equity and investment banking, having worked in London, New York, Amsterdam, Singapore and Hong Kong. He was previously Managing Director at Blackstone, Head of China Financial Institutions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Vice President of ABN AMRO Private Equity. Mr. Lim also founded NBF Capital, a platform specializing in technology investments, as well as co-founded two technology start-ups with HK listed Pico Group in China where he also served as CEO.
Shaun has a Bachelor's degree in Economics (First Class Honours) from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Samson Lo joined UBS in 2010 and is primarily responsible for M&A origination and execution in the Asia Pacific region across many industry sectors. From 2007-2010, Mr. Lo was a member of Merrill Lynch Asia Pacific's investment banking team for Hong Kong-based corporations. From 2000-2007, Mr. Lo was a member of Lehman Brothers' M&A group in New York City and led executions for transactions across many industry sectors.
Mr. Lo graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania's Management & Technology Program, with joint undergraduate degrees from Wharton School and School of Engineering & Applied Sciences.
Raghu Narain brings over 20 years of experience in investment banking, corporate finance and economic policy advisory. Currently, Mr. Narain is Head of Investment Banking for Natixis, APAC with the responsibility to deliver M&A, Acquisition Financing, Strategic Equity, and DCM solutions. Prior to Natixis, Mr. Narain was the Head of Sector Advisory and Global Industrials Group in RBS Asia. In his career, he has undertaken over 100 transactions by financing and advising US$100+ billion in completed deals for global companies. He has advised major global entities including Eurazeo, Sanyuan, Tsinghua, Continental Airlines, Fosun, GVK, Lafarge, MISC, MGM, Reliance, Shanghai Electric, Vedanta and UPS. Prior to working in Asia, he was at Bank of America in New York where he was a Director responsible for M&A and capital raising activities for the Global Transportation and Logistics Group. Mr. Narain began his investment banking career with Salomon Smith Barney / Citigroup in New York.
Mr. Narain has also worked at Bridgewater Associates as an Investment Associate and in the field of development finance at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). He completed his Masters degree from Harvard University. He holds MPA, MBA and BA degrees from the United States. He is a member of the International Honor Society of Beta Gamma Sigma. He has often been highlighted in leading industry media CNBC Squawk Box, Institutional Investors, The Asset, IFR, Marine Money, Drillers and Dealers Digest and The Daily Deal for his achievements in the field of financial services.
Lincoln Pan is a Partner of PAG, a leading Asia-based alternative investment fund managing over US$50bn in capital. He is a co-head of the Private Equity strategy where he leads the non-China Investment Team and the Operations team and is a member of the Investment Review Committee. He is also a member of the PAG Group Management Committee.
Lincoln has led work for many of PAG’s overseas investments, including Patties and Vesco, Cordina Foods, Unispace, Edelweiss Financial Group, Rex Airways, Acme Formulation, Gamot API, Craveable Brands, Joyson Safety Systems, Cushman & Wakefield, Lexmark International, Home Credit China, Fenix Technologies, Food Union Group, The Cheesecake Shop and Young Toys. He is on the public board of Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK) where he chairs the Nomination & Governance Committee and is a member of the Compensation Committee and Regional Express (ASX: REX) where he sits on the Audit Committee.
Prior to joining PAG, Lincoln was Regional CEO, Greater China for Willis Towers Watson. He previously worked with Advantage Partners, the leading private equity firm in Japan, GE Capital, McKinsey & Company and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. Lincoln holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA from Williams College. He has previously qualified to practice law in the State of New York.
Anurag Poddar was appointed the Head of Financial Sponsor Coverage, Asia Pacific, for Natixis CIB in July 2023, based in Singapore. Anurag is responsible for leading the coverage of financial sponsor clients across the region and works with the broader Natixis CIB banking team and affiliates to deliver ESG and M&A advisory, and capital markets and risk solutions to financial sponsor clients.
Prior to this, Anurag was based for seven years with Natixis CIB in New York as a Managing Director, where he was responsible for Natixis CIB’s coverage of key global financial sponsor firms. Anurag has more than 20 years of experience, having worked with and advised some of the largest financial sponsor clients globally across a variety of mandates, including: Mergers and Acquisitions, Infra, Debt and Equity financings, Risk Solutions and Global Markets offerings.
Prior to Natixis CIB, Anurag worked in the Global Financial Sponsors Coverage team at Nomura, and the FIG M&A team at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York. He also held roles at ICICI Bank, as well as practicing as a Chartered Accountant in Mumbai, India. Anurag holds an MBA from New York University Stern School of Business and is a qualified Chartered Accountant in India.
Ben Ridley is an accomplished sustainability and ESG practitioner with a blend of 30 years’ expertise across environmental consulting, corporate ESG advisory and sustainable finance. He is a Partner at ERM focussed on supporting clients in the financial sector. Ben was Asia Pacific lead for ESG financing and advisory at Credit Suisse with roles in first and second lines from 2008-2023, and Board Director and East Asia environmental consulting leader at BMT group up to 2008. He has academic and professional qualifications in ecology, environmental management, and finance. Ben remains involved with impact finance as advisor to two funds. He lives in Hong Kong with his wife and their three grown children.
Currently editorial consultant to Dealreporter and director of Mergermarket Australia, Simon Segal established the Australian bureau of Mergermarket in 2005 where he was bureau chief and Asian editor of Dealreporter (2006-2009).
He has a PhD in the relationship between stakeholders and M&A which has been converted into a book Reframing Mergers and Acquisitions around Stakeholder Relationships: Economic, Political and Social Processes (Routledge Advances in Management and Business Studies). He has co-hosted the weekly Dealbook on the former Sky Business channel and has contributed M&A commentary to numerous Australian publications.
Simon has some 30 years experience in researching, editing, writing and commenting on financial issues, specialising in M&A since 2005.
Emma has spent almost 30 years helping organisations build and protect their brands and reputations across Asia Pacific. An expert in messaging, corporate positioning, stakeholder engagement and change management communications, she is a specialist in the financial services sector and has partnered with hundreds of businesses on their value creation journey.
Prior to founding Sandpiper, she advised Tung Chee-hwa for four years, working on his campaign to be Hong Kong’s first Chief Executive and was APAC CEO of Weber Shandwick, where she also ran its operations across China and Hong Kong. She was elected to the PR Week Global Power Book in 2016 and is a judge of PR and Public Affairs Awards across Asia Pacific. Her work for clients is highly awarded and Sandpiper has been voted Asia Pacific PR Consultancy of the Year by PR Week, PRCA and Provoke in 2023. She sits on the boards of two Hong Kong charities.
Ed heads the Asia based editorial teams for Dealreporter, an M&A news service for merger arbitrage funds, and PaRR, a competition regulatory focused news and database product. He joined Acuris in London in 2007 before moving to Hong Kong in 2014.
Yiqing Wang is Managing Editor of Mergermarket’s Asia-Pacific M&A and ECM editorial team, which specializes in breaking news on private and public M&A transactions and delivering forward-looking intelligence on corporate strategy. Yiqing spearheads the editorial strategy and oversees day-to-day operations, to deliver timely, actionable insights and analysis to help clients make better deal-making and investment decisions. Additionally, she frequently moderates panels and chairs conferences at ION Analytics events, bringing industry insights to the forefront.
She has been an investigative M&A reporter and editor since 2009, writing news ranging from healthcare, renewable energy and financial service, etc.
Yiqing achieved her master's degree of multilingual multicultural studies from New York University.
Esther is the founder and CIO of 3 Capital Investment, a newly founded AI fund with special focus on early stage global opportunities. Prior to that she spent 6 years at Sensetime, China’s largest AI software company, she served as its Managing Director overseeing the company’s strategic investments and capital market. She played a leading role in identifying and investing into long-term strategic partners, creating a robust AI ecosystem. She remains an advisor to the firm.
In addition to successful start up experience, Esther has accumulated more than 20 years of experience in investment banking, serving key leadership roles at JP Morgan, CICC, Barclays etc.
Esther holds an EMBA from The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. She is a board member of Greater Bay Youth Committee, Junior Achievement Hong Kong. Esther is also recently selected as “Most Dynamic Women Enterprenuer HK” by Apac Entrepreneur magazine.
Janice has 10 years of experience across corporate innovation, investment and strategy consulting. She has worked as the Senior Innovation Lead for Jardine Matheson, an Asia-focused Conglomerate, as well as a strategy consultant for Accenture, a listed global management consulting firm.
Janice specializes in innovation, digital transformation, venture building, investment, and sustainability. Janice has extensive experience helping companies to redefine its business strategy and operations by presenting new opportunities that arise at the intersection of business, technology, and sustainability.
She has engaged in a wide range of initiatives covering topics including growth & investment strategy, venture capital funds management, new business launch, digital transformation strategy and sustainability innovation.
She is experienced in working with multinational and Chinese companies across financial services, high tech, retail, travel, automotive and energy industries, as well as emerging start ups.
Heath Zarin is the Founder, Chair and CEO of EmergeVest, a global investment firm that seeks to build great businesses, provide innovative capital solutions and generate sustainable value for all stakeholders. Mr. Zarin is also the Founder, Chair and CEO of EV Cargo, an EmergeVest company with more than $1.5 billion of annual revenues and global operations.
Mr. Zarin began his career as a corporate lawyer with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP in New York, where he formed and advised hedge funds and private equity funds. In 2000, he joined DLJ Merchant Banking, which was subsequently acquired by Credit Suisse. At DLJ / Credit Suisse, which had more than $100 billion in assets under management during his tenure, Mr. Zarin had broad experience across LBOs, mezzanine, growth capital and other investment strategies. Mr. Zarin relocated to Hong Kong in 2006 to form Credit Suisse’s Asian private equity business, where growth equity investments spanned China, India and Southeast Asia, and included several successful IPOs. In 2008, Mr. Zarin left Credit Suisse to form Emergent Investment Group, a Hong Kong-based private investment firm, where he completed private equity investments and advised on special situations. In 2010, Mr. Zarin joined HSBC in Hong Kong as a Managing Director and Head of Principal Investments, Asia-Pacific, with responsibility for all Asian proprietary private investment activities. In 2013, Mr. Zarin formed EmergeVest, with a vision of building a new style of global investment firm.
Mr. Zarin’s current and previous board service includes companies across Asia, Europe and North America, in diverse manufacturing and service industries.
Mr. Zarin received his JD from the Fordham University School of Law in 1998 and his BA from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1995. He has been admitted to practice law in the State of New York. Mr. Zarin is also a CFA, CMT and CAIA charterholder, and has completed Certificate programs from Harvard Business School (Investment Management, Strategy). Mr. Zarin has served as an Executive Committee Member of CAIA Hong Kong, as well as on the board of several non-profit organizations.
EmergeVest, through its Hong Kong-based subsidiary, is a licensed asset manager, regulated by the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (HK SFC). Mr. Zarin is also licensed and regulated by the HK SFC as a responsible officer of EmergeVest. Certain EmergeVest investment funds are regulated by the United States Securities Exchange Commission and other regulatory authorities.
Dr. James ZHANG is the Chief Investment Officer of Venture Capital at Great Eagle Holdings. He is also Adjunct Professor of Finance at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) Business School, where he teaches venture capital. Dr. Zhang was a partner of the GRC Fund, founding partner of Formation 8, and venture partner of Softbank China and Khosla Ventures. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Dr. Zhang was an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley and co-founder of several startup companies. Dr. Zhang received his PhD in Genetics from the University of California and has completed post-doctoral and business trainings from Stanford University and Stanford Graduate School of Business, respectively.
Louisa is the Head of Investments for HSBC Ventures in Asia focusing on fintech and health tech investments. She has an engineering degree from Columbia University followed by 6 years in technology investment banking at UBS focused on consumer tech and semiconductors. Subsequently she became a country manager for a growth stage consumer startup launching and scaling the operations in Hong Kong. Prior to joining HSBC, she spent 5 years at Vectr Ventures, a Hong Kong based early stage VC fund, leading investments in startups across US, Israel, and South East Asia.
Miranda Zhao joined Natixis in 2019 as Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, Asia Pacific, Corporate & Investment Banking. Miranda is responsible for leading the development of M&A activities for the Asia Pacific platform, working closely with the bank’s in-house teams as well as its network of boutiques in the region and globally.
Miranda has extensive investment banking experience across Asia Pacific and Europe, with a strong focus on cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
Her most recent role prior to joining Natixis was as Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at China Everbright Capital Limited. Prior to that, she works for various global investment banks, including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and The Royal Bank of Scotland/CIMB.