Kim & Chang is an outstanding force in the domestic legal market and the largest firm in South Korea. Peers unanimously agree with its consistent and high-quality performance in competition, capital markets, and M&A....
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Kim & Chang is an outstanding force in the domestic legal market and the largest firm in South Korea. Peers unanimously agree with its consistent and high-quality performance in competition, capital markets, and M&A. Due to its glowing reputation, Kim & Chang is almost always involved in the largest Korean cases.
In a landmark case, the firm represented the Korean National Oil Company (KNOC) in its £1.1 billion ($1.8 billion) hostile takeover of Dana Petroleum. Partner Myong Jae Chung and foreign attorney Chung Hoon Ahn handled the transaction, which was the first time a Korean corporation had successfully completed a hostile takeover of an overseas company. KNOC's acquisition of Dana Petroleum reflects a larger trend of Korean companies acquiring energy companies to reduce dependency on foreign oil.
Attorneys Chang Hyeon Ko, Woong Park, and Jong Hyun Park advised Samsung Life Insurance in offering 44.4 million shares owned by shareholders. The offering was completed in a timely fashion though there were complicated issues, such as the legal nature of a life insurance company. The IPO was altogether worth W22 trillion ($20.3 billion), the largest worldwide in the second quarter of 2010.
In the competition area, attorneys Chang-Sik Hwang, Sung-Eyup Park, Jay Hong Ahn, and Gene-Oh Kim successfully defended airlines such as Asiana Airlines, Singapore Airlines Cargo, All Nippon Airways, and Air France in the Korea Fair Trade Commission's investigation into airline cargo price fixing. The recommended fines were reduced by 90%, saving the airlines W120 billion ($111 million).
"You can't compare their network," a client says. "If any regulatory issue isn't solved by Kim & Chang, it just can't be solved. It's been like this since it was established in the early 70s. I think that their connections got even more phenomenal after the financial crisis in the late 90s."
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The sheer volume of Kim & Chang's work in the banking and finance area makes one question whether there really is a slowdown in project financing in South Korea. The firm even expanded its capacity this year hiring foreign counsel Jinhoo Joo from Shearman & Sterling....
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The sheer volume of Kim & Chang's work in the banking and finance area makes one question whether there really is a slowdown in project financing in South Korea. The firm even expanded its capacity this year hiring foreign counsel Jinhoo Joo from Shearman & Sterling.
In one of the largest transactions of 2010, partners Young-Kyun Cho and Kyoung Ah Grace Nam acted for Korea Development Bank and other lenders in developing a W1.2 trillion ($1.1 billion) financing package for a 1560MW LNG-fired combined cycle power plant to be built by Pocheon Power in Pocheon-Si, Kyunggi-Do, Korea. The complex financing package includes several components, including a senior credit facility consisting of two tranches.
The restructuring and insolvency area suffered a blow last summer with the departure of prominent partner Min Han, who left to become a Professor of Law at prestigious Ewha Women's University. He was replaced with Hyun Tae Bae, a judge from Inchon District Court.
Kim & Chang has been active in insolvency cases in the shipping sector, which has experienced a downturn following the 2008 financial crisis. It is advising Nordea Bank Singapore in an effort to force Korea Line Corporation, presently in rehabilitation proceedings, to repay $130 million borrowed from four credit facilities.
Another restructuring case involved CMA CGM, one of the three largest container-shipping companies in the world. Attorneys Hi-Sun Yoon, Ik-Hwan Cho, and Seong-Su Kim advised the client to create a restructuring plan that required consensus from government bodies, export agencies, financial creditors, and others in EU countries, Korea, and China.
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