Baker McKenzie Associate Firm FenXun Adds Two Partners From Zhong Lun

Baker McKenzie's Chinese alliance firm FenXun Partners has hired an eight-lawyer finance team from Zhong Lun Law Firm.

The team includes two partners – Shirley Wang and Grace Chen – and six associates, all based in Beijing. Wang, who leads the team, specialises in financing transactions, especially renminbi-denominated bonds by non-Chinese issuers, otherwise known as 'panda bonds'. Last year, she advised Hong Kong-based ABC International Holdings Ltd. on a $443 million private placement of panda bonds. She also represents Chinese banks on financing transactions related to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Wang joined Zhong Lun as a partner in 2012 from Zhong Lun W&D – a different firm – where she was also a partner. Earlier in her career, she worked at state-owned China National Machinery Import and Export Corp.

Chen advises on banking and corporate transactions in the energy, mining, real estate, agriculture and manufacturing sectors. She joined Zhong Lun as part of Wang's team and became a partner in 2018.

Beijing-based FenXun now has more than 100 lawyers, including 20 partners. The firm has more than tripled in size since 2015, when it formed an alliance with Baker McKenzie under a special programme in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ). Through a joint operations office inside the FTZ, the two firms are allowed to give Chinese and foreign law advice within a single entity.

In late 2018, FenXun recruited prominent litigation partner Liu Honghuan and her team of a dozen lawyers from JunHe. Liu also practiced with Zhong Lun before joining JunHe in 2008.