King & Wood Mallesons looks beyond US/UK for expansion

King & Wood Mallesons - the firm born of a recent merger between Australian and Chinese firms - is going against expectations by looking past the US and UK in its expansion strategy in favour of a focus on Canada, Russia and South East Asia. Available intel on the firm’s likely strategy is mostly heresay at this point, with rumours suggesting that the firm has been visiting a number of Canadian firms with a view to establishing links that may lead to stronger ties in the future. “It would be interesting because it’s an obvious resource play – China’s a big buyer and Australia’s a big exporter. The kind of firm King & Wood Mallesons would probably want to go for would have to have a strong presence in western Canada,” said a Canadian market commentator. The resource-rich Russia and CIS countries appear to be another place of interest to King & Wood Mallesons, and it is said that the firm was interested in acquiring Dewey & LeBoeuf’s Moscow team before the team made the move to Morgan Lewis in early May. The firm is also said to be keen on establishing a presence in South-East Asia, and senior management has previously indicated that there had been tie-up talks with Singaporean firms, with WongPartnership being a possible contender.

King & Wood Mallesons looks beyond US/UK for expansion thelawyer.com Wed, Jun 20, 2012