Moves – 25 October 2012

Jones Day has appointed Chris Swift as a partner in their M&A practice. Formerly a partner with Allen & Overy, he will be based in the firm’s Hong Kong Office. Swift focuses his practice in M&As, private equity, corporate restructurings, and general corporate finance. He has more than 15 years of experience in the Asia Pacific region and has led some of the largest and best known M&A and ECM transactions during that period. He is a member of the Hong Kong Takeovers and Mergers Panel, and his public M&A and regulatory experience includes two years in a senior position at the London Takeover Panel.

King & Wood Mallesons has further strengthened its M&A team with the arrival of Mark McNamara who joins the firm on 6 November 2012 as head of private equity. He was most recently the global head of the PE practice at Baker & McKenzie and also the head of its Australian corporate markets practice. His area of expertise ranges from M&A transactions for private equity clients to MBOs / LBOs, public takeovers, private M&A and security offerings.

Majmudar & Partners has appointed Christopher Krishnamoorthy as an associate partner to be based in the firm’s Mumbai office. His experience includes public and private M&A, private equity, joint ventures, asset sales, investment advisory work and commercial contracts, including contracts for the development of power projects. He has been practising in India since 1997, and is also qualified in England & Wales.He previously worked at Trilegal (New Delhi) and Kochhar & Co (New Delhi), in Russia at White & Case (Moscow), and in the UK at Jones Day (London).

Reed Smith (known in Hong Kong as Reed Smith Richards Butler) has appointed partner Jason Toms to its global shipping group in Hong Kong. He joins from Stephenson Harwood Hong Kong. Toms is a litigation partner advising on all aspects of wet and dry shipping matters, with particular expertise in charterparty, transportation and shipping disputes and claims and collisions. He acts for shipowners, underwriters, charterers and freight forwarders. He also acts as Hong Kong counsel for the world’s largest ocean freight forwarder and fifth largest air freight forwarder. Toms has acted on many of Hong Kong’s highest profile shipping (and litigation) cases, including the collision and total loss of the “Neftegaz 67.”

Stephenson Harwood has strengthened its aviation and structured finance practice in Singapore with the appointment of Saugata Mukherjee. Previously at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, Mukherjee was a senior associate in their structured and asset finance group. Prior to that, he worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, London.