Hwang Hwa Sim

As global head of the firm’s Capital Markets practice, Hwang Hwa advises companies, underwriters and investors on the full range of debt, equity and equity-linked products in China and the Asia region. He is particularly noted for his market-leading expertise in equity-linked products (in particular, highly structured and cross-border convertible bonds and exchangeable bonds), hybrid securities, offshore bond issuances by major PRC companies (including structured bonds), ESG financing structures, panda bonds and structured pre-IPO investments.

Hwang Hwa also regularly advises alternative capital providers, global investment banks, special situations groups, hedge funds and private equity funds on their proprietary investments in the Greater China region.

Prior to taking up his role as global head of Capital Markets, Hwang Hwa was a member of Linklaters’ Partnership Election Committee and Linklaters’ People Committee, emphasising the firm’s desire to develop exceptional people by empowering our teams to work and think differently.

Work highlights

Hwang Hwa has led Linklaters’ teams on many of the most significant capital markets deals globally. These include advising on:

• Meituan on its US$10bn combined convertible bonds and primary shares issuance
• CK Hutchison Group Telecom on its €20bn combined bond market and loan market financing for its European telecom assets
• Cheung Kong Assets on its innovative and first in the market fixed-for-life perpetual bonds and other innovative perpetual securities for Hong Kong blue chip companies
• Xiaomi on its US$4bn combined equity-linked and equity issuance
• green bonds and innovative sustainability-linked bonds for blue chip companies, including Agricultural Bank of China, Link REIT and Beijing Enterprises Holdings)
• innovative cross-border equity-linked issuances, such as the first H-share full circulation equity-linked deal, the first cross border exchangeable bonds and the largest H-share convertible bonds by major Asia companies including Shandong Weigao, Baosteel Corporation, China Yangtze Power, China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, Hansoh Pharmaceutical, Zhejiang Expressway, Viva Biotech, Sino Biopharmaceutical, ANTA Sports and Wuxi Apptech
• cross-border bond issuances by major China state-owned entities and prominent Asia companies, including the Beijing Enterprises group, Shougang Corporation, Baosteel Corporation, Guangdong Hengjian, the Yue Xiu group, Hutchison Ports, Hon Hai/Foxconn and the Shangri-La group
• innovative panda bonds issuances in China, including the Maybank panda (the first panda bonds to utilise Bond Connect), the National Bank of Canada panda (the first panda bond issuance by a North American company) and the Standard Chartered Bank special drawings rights panda (the only panda bonds worldwide to utilise Special Drawing Rights)

Hwang Hwa is a member of the Legal Experts Working Group for China’s National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII).

Hwang Hwa studied law at the University of Birmingham and is a Barrister-at-Law from Lincoln’s Inn.

He is fluent in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujianese, Bahasa Indonesia and Malay.