Kenneth Leong

Kenneth Leong is a Mergers & Acquisitions specialist with extensive experience handling complex and high-value corporate transactions.

He has represented private equity funds, public listed companies, SWF-backed entities, MNCs and family offices as their lead transaction counsel in a broad range of sophisticated local and cross-border M&A deals including PE-led privatisations, vendor auction sale processes and strategic joint ventures.

Kenneth’s clients and transactional experience span across a wide array of industries and sectors, including renewable energy, data centres, logistics, manufacturing, petrochemicals, medical technology, healthcare, education, and food & beverage.

Apart from offering transactional expertise, Kenneth also assists several private-equity portfolio companies and other clients with their general corporate and commercial needs. This include advising on corporate governance, regulatory, employment, distributorship and franchising matters.

Kenneth was described by Chambers Asia-Pacific for being “an excellent transactional lawyer having all-round experience and commercial awareness”, with a “strong grasp of the nuances of getting a deal done” and by Legal 500 Asia Pacific as “very proactive and has a broad perspective”, “an outstanding problem solver” and is “without doubt one of the best young M&A partners in Singapore”.

Significant deals in which Kenneth had been involved include acting for:

• South Pacific Chemicals Industries Group (SPCI) and its founder-owners, in the share sale and joint venture with HELM AG, one of the world’s largest chemicals marketing companies, in 2022;
• Smart-Gas Pte. Ltd., and its founder-owners in the sale of their shares to AirPower Technologies Limited, the largest independent gases supplier in China by revenue in 2022;
• Empyrion DC Pte. Ltd., a portfolio company of Seraya Partners (a next-generation infrastructure PE fund), in its 2021 acquisition of Dodid Pte. Ltd. which owns and operates a hyper-scale Tier III data centre facility in Singapore;
• Phoon Huat as lead transaction counsel in the acquisition of a majority shareholding interest in Le Petit Depot Pte. Ltd. (“Le Petit”) via a subscription of redeemable preference shares and a purchase of ordinary shares from existing shareholders of Le Petit. Le Petit is Singapore’s leading online platform for French food products;
• Universal Group Holdings (Pte.) Ltd. in its disposal of interest in Universal Terminal to government-owned Jurong Port Pte Ltd in 2021, making it the largest independent tank storage terminal operator in Singapore;
• United Test and Assembly Center Ltd in its acquisition of semiconductor wafer bumping operations and assets from Powertech Technology (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (wholly-owned by TWSE-listed Powertech Technology Inc.) in 2020;
• A real estate fund managed by CAPSTONE Asset Management Co., Ltd, in its acquisition from a leading private equity fund of its Singapore-held equity interest in a Korean real estate investment fund company undertaking a mixed use development project in Seoul’s prime business district, for a transaction value of more than US$200 million in 2020;
• Chip Eng Seng Corporation Ltd (listed on SGX-ST) in its acquisition of Raffles Campus (Malaysia) Pte. Ltd. which owns and operates an international school known as Excelsior International School for S$24.4 million in 2019;
• Chip Eng Seng Corporation Ltd (listed on SGX-ST) in its acquisition of a 38% equity interest in Amdon Consulting Pte Ltd for S$5.4 million in 2019;
• Ekuiti Nasional Berhad (“Ekuinas”), a government backed private equity fund in its acquisition of up to 40.36% of Exabytes Capital Group Sdn Bhd for RM40 million in 2019;
• Integra LifeSciences in the Singapore closing of its global asset acquisition of Johnson & Johnson’s Codman Neurosurgery business for US$1.05 billion in 2018;
• Accuron MedTech Group (a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings), STMicroelectronics and other vendors in the auction sale of Veredus Laboratories Pte Ltd to Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd in 2018 – in one of the largest biotech exits in Singapore;
• RRJ Capital-led consortium in a competitive bid to acquire Global Logistic Properties Limited in 2017 – the deal (valued by the final bidder at approx. S$16 billion) was the largest private equity buy-out of an Asian company by enterprise value;
• Founder David Low and Heliconia Capital (a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings) in their sale of Futuristic Store Fixtures Pte Ltd to V3 Group Limited (owned by Ron Sim, founder of OSIM Group) for approx. S$75 million in 2017.

MEMBERSHIPS & ASSOCIATIONS

• Member, Law Society of Singapore
• Member, Singapore Academy of Law

AWARDS

• Ranked as “Up and Coming” for Corporate/M&A: Domestic in 2023 edition of Chambers Asia-Pacific
• Ranked as “Notable Practitioner” for M&A (Singapore) in the 32nd edition of IFLR1000
• Ranked as “Recommended Lawyer” for Corporate and M&A in the 2023 edition of Legal500 Asia Pacific
• Ranked as “Notable Practitioner” for Corporate M&A (Singapore) in 2020 and 2021 edition of Asialaw Profile

PUBLICATIONS

• Kenneth is a co-author of the Singapore Chapter in “Getting the Deal Through – Private Equity (Transactions) 2012”.

PRACTICE AREAS

• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Corporate & Commercial Law