Profile: William F Barron

Capital Markets

Biography: Capital Markets

Mr Barron is a resident partner in Davis Polk & Wardwell's Hong Kong office. He has over 23 years of experience advising corporations, underwriters and financial investors in connection with capital markets, leveraged finance, M&A and other corporate finance transactions. He has worked in New York, London, Tokyo and, for the past 14 years, Hong Kong, and on transactions in every major country in Asia.

Mr Barron has worked on many of the landmark securities offerings in the region, including the privatisations of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, China Unicom and Sinopec, and the Nasdaq IPO of Baidu.com. He is an expert on high-yield debt and leveraged finance.

Mr Barron has worked on a number of significant mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and private equity transactions in Asia. These have included representation of Goldman Sachs in connection with its investment and sale of its stake in Ping An Insurance; CNOOC in connection with its proposed acquisition of Unocal; PCCW in connection with its acquisition of SUNDAY Communications; Merrill Lynch in connection with the going-private transaction for Asia Aluminum; CSFB in connection with its Asian private equity partnership; and numerous transactions on behalf of hedge funds.

Mr Barron received his AB, with distinction, from Dartmouth College in 1979 and in 1984 received his JD from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. He is on the international advisory board of Columbia Law School.

Mr Barron is listed as a leading lawyer in numerous legal industry publications, including Chambers Asia: Asia's Leading Lawyers for Business, in which he is listed in the first band in Hong Kong and China for each of Corporate Finance/M&A, Equity, Debt and High-Yield Debt, and the first band in China for Corporate Finance/M&A: Hong Kong-based expert; Chambers Global: The World's Leading Lawyers for Business, the IFLR1000 Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms, Law Business Research's Who's Who Legal: The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, Practical Law Company's Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions Handbook and Legalease's The Asia Pacific Legal 500.