Baker McKenzie's member firm in Singapore has hired an India-focused finance lawyer from Allen & Overy – the latest in a string of India specialists to leave the Magic Circle firm in Asia.

Kunal Katre joins Baker McKenzie Wong & Leow as a local principal (equivalent to of counsel) after more than a decade at Allen & Overy, where he was most recently a senior associate.

Katre, who is qualified in India and in England and Wales, focuses on transactions, including syndicated loans, leveraged and acquisition financing, private equity-led sponsor financing, margin lending, structured financing, and peer-to-peer loans, in India as well as Indonesia and Malaysia.

In 2016, Katre was part of the team that advised AION Capital Partners Ltd., a fund of Indian private equity firm ICICI Venture Funds Management Co. Ltd. and New York-based Apollo Global Management, on the financing of its acquisition of U.S. industrial conglomerate General Electric Co.'s commercial lending and leasing businesses in India, as part of a consortium with former GE Capital executives.

Katre joined Allen & Overy's Singapore office in 2007 and did a three-year stint in London before returning to the city-state last June.

Since May of last year, Allen & Overy's Hong Kong office has lost three debt capital markets lawyers specialising in Indian deals: former partner Amit Singh went to Linklaters' Singapore office, former counsel David Cameron joined Dorsey & Whitney as a partner, and former associate Debolina Saha left for an in-house job at New York-based financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

The firm did cover some of the losses by hiring Felipe Duque, a former Shearman & Sterling counsel, as a capital markets partner in Singapore last month.

Allen & Overy is currently in merger talks with U.S. firm O'Melveny & Myers. Legal Week reported last month that the two are in the final stages of discussions.

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