IFLR Asia-Pacific Awards 2022: an interview with winners Allen & Gledhill

IFLR Asia-Pacific Awards 2022: an interview with winners Allen & Gledhill

IFLR are delighted to congratulate Allen & Gledhill for profitable the adhering to IFLR Asia-Pacific Awards 2022:

  • Legislation Agency of the Year – Regional
  • Countrywide Regulation Agency of the Year – Singapore
  • Securitisation and Structured Finance Offer of the Year – Bayfront Infrastructure Funds Stomach muscles Issuance

The Allen & Gledhill Network is one of the largest in the location and comprises above 650 legal professionals across Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Quite a few of Allen & Gledhill’s attorneys are regarded believed leaders in their area and have labored on some of the most progressive and ground-breaking promotions in the area as lead or transaction counsel.

What are your most revolutionary cross-border transactions?

As a single of the biggest firms in ASEAN, our business is often associated in floor-breaking issues that are the very first of its kind. This is doable because of our community, and the experience we have throughout various jurisdictions. Some of our most impressive transactions last year consist of: 

  • The listing of Get on NASDAQ by way of a enterprise mixture with exclusive purpose acquisition business Altimeter Development Corp. of around US$39.6 billion, which was the greatest-ever US general public listing by a Southeast Asian company.
  • The US$977 million preliminary community giving of Electronic REIT, which was the most significant IPOs of 2021 in Singapore with belongings in the US and Canada. This is also the 1st time a Singapore REIT obtained any investment located in Canada.
  • The situation of US$850 million notes by GLP Pte. Ltd., which was the initial-at any time offering of US greenback eco-friendly subordinated perpetual securities by an Asia-Pacific company issuer and is the biggest US greenback environmentally friendly subordinated perpetual securities presenting globally to day.
  • The difficulty of S$250 million sustainability-joined notes less than the US$1 billion multicurrency financial debt issuance programme of Surbana Jurong Non-public Limited, which is believed to be the first Singapore greenback-denominated sustainability-connected bond and the first community sustainability-joined bond issuance from a South-east Asian based mostly corporation. This is also the 1st Asian sustainability-joined bond to element a premium step-up construction at maturity.
  • The US$5.5 billion funds acquisition of Jardine Strategic Holdings Limited by Jardine Matheson Holdings Restricted, which concerned engagement with regulators and coordination throughout 3 jurisdictions, as the shares of Jardine Strategic Holdings Restricted are outlined on the London Inventory Trade, the Bermuda Stock Exchange, and the Mainboard of the Singapore Exchange Securities Investing Restricted.

Why is the Bayfront Infrastructure Capital Stomach muscles Issuance transaction so major?

The Bayfront Infrastructure Capital Abs Issuance transaction was led by our Companions Yeo Wico and Jeanne Ong. It was a significant transaction as it displays and improvements Singapore’s part as a whole-company Asian infrastructure financing hub in connecting a numerous combine of buyers to infrastructure jobs in the area. The sustainability tranche is also a fantastic showcase of how Singapore can immediate additional non-public funds in the direction of sustainable initiatives, and recycle cash to guidance a transition pathway for economies in Asia.

What were being the highlights for Allen & Gledhill in 2021? 

Our firm actively screens the shifts in the neighborhood and regional small business and political landscape. Being familiar with these shifts have allowed us to proactively recognize probable locations of want for our clients, and pivot our offerings to meet these requires.

This is why in 2021, we consolidated our abilities to start two new practices and extend the scope of two of our current tactics. Our newly dedicated Cybersecurity & Information Defense Apply, Work, Overall health & Protection Practice, ESG & Community Policy Exercise, and Personal Prosperity Follow, aim to offer customers with specialised lawful expert services that cater to the certain wants of consumers in these emerging places. As part of this launch, our firm also organised a quantity of webinars which served to tackle vital issues that our shoppers could have in the spots of cybersecurity and ESG. These webinars have been nicely attended by our customers, with quite a few of them providing suggestions appreciating our initiatives, and suggesting subjects that we can look to cover.

Our organization also will take a proactive stance in the direction of know-how adoption, as we recognise its worth in the procedure of innovation. This is why we have accelerated our digitalisation options in 2020. Early in 2021, we released our A&G Know-how Transformation initiative, which enabled us to amalgamate our decades of expertise with details-pushed insights. This has allowed us to formulate seem techniques and price-included solutions which assisted our clientele to navigate difficulties posed by significantly sophisticated digital economies and global connectivity. In executing so, we have also been able to increase our efficiency and service specifications, resulting in an all round raise in customer satisfaction. 

Are there any traits from 2021 that you hope to continue on? 

In latest several years, the importance of sustainability and ESG has grown to grow to be an integral part of enterprise approaches currently. We expect this development to carry on, and for far more businesses to get into thing to consider an organisation’s efficiency on sustainability and ESG issues as a way of figuring out their extended-time period benefit development and prospective. Providers will also progressively seem to partner with those who are aligned to their personal corporate values. 

Interest in sustainability and ESG has in fact been escalating for a lot of many years now, and will keep on to improve as buyers turn into additional informed of how their conclusions impression the natural environment and the sustainability of their business. For instance, the international pandemic has accelerated the adoption of ESG and sustainable finance due to the fact of the large-scale impression on the worldwide economic climate and society as a total. This has led to larger interest in the idea of creating sustainable organizations that can weather conditions the effects of large-scale disruptions to the financial state. Governments way too are on the lookout at ways that ESG will impression their community economies, and have set in area regulations to guarantee that corporations conform to some measure of ESG. 

A lot more and a lot more, we are also observing shoppers who occur to us looking to integrate their company’s ESG guidelines into the transactions that they carry out. This ranges from making certain that a transaction is inside of the tips set by a local govt, to stipulating that a transaction have to mitigate any detrimental environmental or societal effect. We see ESG as an evolution in the enterprise environment, and just one that will proceed to consider prominence in most, if not all foreseeable future promotions. 

Businesses for that reason will require to evolve and pivot their choices to types that just take into thing to consider their impact on the surroundings and communities they are in. Simply being aware of this and endeavor tacit commitments to transform however, is not adequate. It is vital for them to recognize and navigate the evolving rules with regard to sustainability and ESG.

Recognising the worth of supporting our clientele in this area, our Agency expanded our scope of products and services to go over ESG and Community Policy and started our possess ESG journey very last yr. In performing so, we became the initial legislation organization in ASEAN to gain admission into the United Nations Global Compact. We also underwent a seven-month prolonged sustainability and ESG audit in 2021 with an independent consultancy, culminating in the launch of our ESG Roadmap this calendar year. 

A crucial element in our roadmap revolves close to our capability to lover with like-minded purchasers to assistance them navigate evolving developments and problems encompassing their have sustainability and ESG journey. By means of our own knowledge as effectively as partnerships with top organisations, we are dedicated to sharing normal insights with them on these problems, and aiding them succeed.

What will 2022 (and over and above) bring for Allen & Gledhill?

Our firm is usually on the lookout for options to bring value additional services to our shoppers. This contains growing our community to be certain that we are capable to provide our clients with the unparalleled end-to-conclude companies in the jurisdictions they run in, and proactively observing the current market to discover likely parts of option and need to have for our purchasers. 

Allen & Gledhill LLP

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