This complex transaction involved a multi-disciplinary Appleby team which was led by Managing Partner David Bulley and consisted of Managing Partner David Bulley, Counsel Ida Nylund and Associate Alejandra Gonzalez Saucedo from the Hong Kong Restructuring Group, Partner Richard Grasby from the Hong Kong Regulatory and Trusts Group, advising on novel sanctions and offshore trusts issues, and Counsel Crystal Au-Yeung and Associate Ray Leung from the Hong Kong Dispute Resolution Group.
This landmark deal is not only the largest offshore restructuring transaction completed by a Chinese company in recent years, but also the first English scheme of arrangement of a Chinese real estate developer in the current wave of defaults.
Furthermore, it is the only successful restructuring transaction to date in this sector with a debt-to-equity swap element; and the first transaction to deal with the new UK sanctions regime (December 2022) by use of a bespoke offshore trust structure, which will form the basis for other upcoming restructurings in this space; many of which Appleby are currently acting on for the relevant Companies.
Commenting on the matter David said “This transaction will be an important precedent for many of the ongoing China real estate restructuring mandates and the debt-to-equity swap elements and structuring for Russian sanctions, in particular, can be expected to be seen in more transactions in this space. Further, I’m delighted to see that the Appleby Hong Kong restructuring group has a market leading reputation and continues to be engaged as specialist restructuring counsel for complex Asian restructuring mandates, in many cases displacing incumbent offshore counsel. With further expansion of our restructuring team to be announced in the coming weeks, we look to continuing to be involved in these complex mandates and to work with leading onshore legal and financial advisors.”
CFLD is a publicly traded Chinese real estate developer focused on industrial parks, based in Beijing.
Our team regularly works with companies around the globe to help them deploy strategic growth and restructuring initiatives whether involving single jurisdictions or complex multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplinary transactions.
