Jeff Leong, speaking at a China Belt And Road Initiative event. Jeff’s legal practice spans over 35 yearsacross tech startups, tech funding, IPOs, overseas expansion, M&As, takeovers, board tussles and shareholder proxy fights, mediations, corporate fraud investigations, corporate restructuring and insolvency, and corporate rescues and rehabilitation.
“When no one else was advocating for startups, Jeff was there supporting them with reasonable fees for legal work and providing pro-bono training and mentoring,” says Sivapalan Vivekarajah, co-founder of startup accelerator ScaleUp Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, about Jeff Leong, senior partner at Jeff Leong Poon & Wong, after working with him for more than two decades.
“He has been a strong supporter and advocate for the startup ecosystem in Malaysia, working with the ecosystem on policy matters, helping startups and funds with legal matters, and even training them on the legal aspects that concern them, including shareholder and subscription agreements, investment instruments, and helping with fundraising and M&A.”
Greg Poarch, chief financial officer at investment holding company JcbNext in Kuala Lumpur, also praises Leong for his counsel on capital market matters. “Jeff has provided very helpful advice from both a legal and commercial point of view in our corporate journey from pre-IPO through complicated cross-border M&A transactions,” says Poarch.
“He has been supported by a strong team that has been very responsive to our needs and comprehensive in advising us on legal matters, as we’ve relied on them in the absence of any in-house counsel.”
Kenny Poon, with one of our 7 JLPW IPO teams at Yixing IPO Launch in May 2022. His legal practice spans over 30 years covering corporate advisory, complex M&As, domestic and crossborder IPOs, corporate restructuring and insolvency, mining and energy deals and also Myanmar legal advisory.
Kenny Poon, senior partner and co-founder at Jeff Leong Poon & Wong, has acted in various IPOs and listings on stock exchanges in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and London for more than 30 years. Poon is nominated by Riznida Eliza Hamzah, senior general manager at logistic provider Swift Haulage in Petaling Jaya for their “previous great experience working together”
I am the senior partner of Messrs Jeff Leong, Poon & Wong, Malaysia.
I am also serving with the Law Association For Asia And The Pacific (LAWASIA), the peak body for national bar associations and law societies in more than 40 jurisdictions in the Asia Pacific region as Chair of the Corporate, Securities & Investment Law and Co Chair of the Belt And Road Initiative Standing Committees.
I lead a Special Projects team, structure and run complex M&A deals, resolve critical problems faced by clients such as crisis management, regulatory investigations, shareholder fights and board tussles and advise founders, business owners and senior management on business transactions.
With numerous IPOs and M&A deals over 30 years, I am often consulted by clients in Shipping and Logistics, Technology and Digital Economy, Oil & Gas and other heavily regulated industries on complex, urgent and critical matters.
I have been included on Asia Business Law Journal’s A List of Malaysia’s Top 100 Lawyers and Legal 500’s Hall of Fame for Corporate and M&A for Malaysia.
I am an accredited Mediator of the Malaysian Mediation Centre, the International Commercial Mediation Centre For the Belt And Road Initiative, Benchmark Chambers International & Benchmark International Mediation Centre, Shenzhen Qianhai International Commercial Mediation Centre, CCPIT/CCOIC Hangzhou Mediation Centre and Hainan International Arbitration Court.
I founded JLPW in 1999 during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis with 2 other founders. We were deep into corporate rescues and mergers of banks, insurance companies and stockbrokers to resuscitate the bleeding Malaysian economy, working on some of the major corporate rescues of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.
Affiliations with Deacons Graham & James 2001- 2012 and Dacheng (now Dentons China) 2012-2016 quickly followed. In 2012, we founded JLPW CROSSBORDER ASIA, a regional law firm network.
In JLPW, we developed the current due diligence system adopted and used by industry participants in capital markets transactions in 1999. I assisted the review of the 2020 Due Diligence Guide for Malaysia with investment bankers, accountants, capital market lawyers and other industry participants.
I currently lead our Japan Services Group, assisting Japanese companies venturing into Malaysia and South East Asia with market entry strategies, M&As and post merger integration advisory together with our Japanese speaking team.
I am also leading our China Services Group and regional JLPW Belt and Road Services Group assisting Chinese companies investing and undertaking Belt and Road projects in Malaysia and other ASEAN countries.
As leader, strategist, chief talent scout, builder and problem solver, I have initiated and developed various practice groups in JLPW and am now leading our Legal Tech initiatives to better support our clients in the new Digital Economy.
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