PwC sign

Big Four accounting firm PwC's affiliated law firm in Hong Kong has added an aircraft financing partner.

Tejaswi Nimmagadda joins Tiang & Partners from King & Wood Mallesons, where he was counsel. He specialises in aircraft financing and leasing and will lead the firm's aviation and asset finance practice. Last year, he represented Chinese aircraft lessor Comsys Leasing Co. Ltd. on a $270 million acquisition and the leasing for 12 years of an A380 passenger plane to Dubai-based carrier Emirates Airlines.

Nimmagadda leaves King & Wood Mallesons after 16 years with the firm, first in Sydney and then in Hong Kong, where he moved in 2016. Before that, he was an associate at Stephenson Harwood in Singapore and with Milbank in New York.

In June, King & Wood Mallesons hired former Clifford Chance Shanghai counsel Katherine Ke as a banking and finance partner in Hong Kong specialising in the aviation sector.

With the addition of Nimmagadda, Tiang & Partners has 25 lawyers, including eight partners. The firm was launched in 2017 by David Tiang, a former King & Wood Mallesons Beijing partner, and started to aggressively expand last year, recruiting four partners with international firm experience in 2018 alone.

Its Big Four rivals have also been expanding in Hong Kong's legal market. Both Deloitte and KPMG launched law firms in January and plan to grow to 25 lawyers and 20 lawyers, respectively; and EY has recruited five partners from Am Law 100 firms Troutman Sanders, Dechert and Paul Hastings to its four-year-old Hong Kong firm since last year.

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