O'Melveny Opens in Singapore With White & Case Hire

Sofia Lind

Legal Week

August 04, 2008

Singapore
Source: Getty Images

O'Melveny & Myers has launched an office in Singapore with the hire of White & Case's Asia head of banking, finance and restructuring Bertie Mehigan as its managing partner.

Mehigan joined O'Melveny Monday with finance and restructuring partner Huey Yann Thong to follow later this week.

The Singapore launch marks the fifth Asian office for O'Melveny, in addition to the firm's bases in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo. The new office has been launched to serve as a gateway to south Asian markets such as India, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The office will initially focus on finance, restructuring and distressed investment, private equity, M&A and capital markets, with Mehigan and Thong to be joined in the office by two O'Melveny lawyers relocating from the United States.

Transactions partner David Makarechian moves from Silicon Valley and real estate counsel William Miller from the firm's Newport Beach, Calif., office, with Makarechian taking the role of administrative partner in Singapore.

News of the White & Case hires comes less than a week after O'Melveny announced it had hired the firm's restructuring and insolvency partner Mark Fairbairn in Hong Kong.

The three partners will now become part of a newly formed group in O'Melveny's Asia practice, titled the Asia strategic capital and finance group. It will include lawyers throughout Asia working together on capital-raising transactions.

O'Melveny's Asia head Howard Chao said the firm intends to grow the lawyer count in Singapore, which could be around 15 lawyers by the end of the year.

He commented: "Singapore has been in the works for a while but got serious earlier this year. We wanted a combination of internal and lateral partners, and we were fortunate that it has now come together."

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