Issues

Executive Summary: U.S. public pension funds – longstanding proponents of corporate governance and shareholder proposal-style activism in the U.S. – are now allocating increasing amounts of capital throughout the world, and increasingly considering whether and how to globally apply their strategies and tactics for increasing shareholder power, changing governance norms, influencing boards and management teams … Continued

Highlights: Toward the end of 2014, the Belgian M&A market became increasingly active.  Due to several factors such as a weaker euro, fear on the part of business owners for a tax shift and greater willingness of the banks to finance acquisitions, the positive trend of enhanced M&A activity continued in H1 2015. Private equity … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights: Global M&A volume in Q2 was almost US$1.4 trillion, significantly higher than the average quarterly volumes in recent years and the most active quarter since the financial crisis. Year to date M&A volume was ~US$2.25 trillion.  These USD figures were recorded despite the strength of the dollar when measuring values for deals stuck … Continued

Highlights: Foreign investment projects in China are categorized into encouraged, permitted, restricted and prohibited projects.  The 2014 revisions to the Catalogue of Industries for Guiding Foreign Investment were made with the intention to substantially reduce the restricted projects, to loosen the restrictions on foreign shareholding percentage, and to primarily promote the opening-up of the manufacturing … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights: Global M&A volume in Q1 was US$854 billion, the highest Q1 volume in recent years, carrying momentum from a strong 2014 into 2015.  If deal activity continues at its current pace, global M&A activity in 2015 will at least match last year’s strong volume of approximately US$3.5 trillion. The surge in M&A activity … Continued

Executive summary: The following article discusses the introduction of the 2015 Regulations to overhaul the legal regime to address challenges posed by the 1992 Regulations. Such challenges included limited scope of definition of ‘insider’ or ‘connected person’, no clear guidance on due diligence in listed company transactions and over regulation by prescribing detailed disclosure requirements … Continued

MAIN ARTICLE Korea had the strongest and most active M&A market in 2014 during the past five years with a 47% increase in announced deal volume from USD 64.8 billion in 2013 to USD 95 billion in 2014 (based on Bloomberg statistics), and Kim & Chang had the privilege of advising on transactions accounting for … Continued

Executive Summary: 2014 witnessed significant changes to the laws and regulations governing public tender offers in France.  Among the more notable changes were: “passivity rule”: the reversal of France’s 2006 opt-in to the Takeover Directive’s version of the English “passivity rule”; double voting rights: the default rule for listed companies now provides double voting rights for all … Continued

Executive Summary: While most merger transactions have been passed by the Competition Commission of India (“CCI”) without conducting a detailed investigation, the CCI has escalated recent combinations to such greater review.  This article examines the procedure of the CCI in relation to so-called Phase II inquiries in proposed combinations and highlights some of the teething … Continued

Executive Summary/Highlights: Global M&A was robust in 2014, hitting two noteworthy post-crisis high-water marks: total global volume reached US$3.5 trillion, and cross-border volume reached US$1.38 trillion. Cross-border M&A reached its highest level since the financial crisis, accounting for 40% of global M&A in 2014, and included some of the year’s largest deals, including many above … Continued