IFLR 1000
The Guide to the World's Leading Financial Law Firms

Partner Yong Won Choi is in charge of the Shin & Kim's China practice. Shin & Kim acted for KT in its acquisition of 25% shares in Hong Kong QTT Global for $12 million. A second deal involved a W20.8 billion ($18.6 million) acquisition by SK Networks of 100% shares of a Chinese subsidiary in the car rental business.

Shin & Kim's banking and finance practice has increased over the past few years in both scope and quality. Clients note foreign consultant Hyun Ju Helen Pak is "very responsive and smart, and understands all the structures and provisions under relevant documents extremely well. Whenever we have other issues she understands them brilliantly and responds very quickly." Clients also highlight "Sang Man Kim's excellent technical legal knowledge; his ability to go through a document and draft things is just superb. We have them look at all of our public issuance documents, all our risk disclosures and what not." Overall the firm has been praised for being "Always up to speed, up to trends, and always knowledgeable about the legal and business atmospheres." The firm is also known as one of the leading firms for insolvency law in Korea. Although having traditionally represented debtors, its ability to represent creditors in major recent insolvency cases has been proven to be of exceptional standard.

Deals
The firm advised a consortium of banks including Macquarie and its SPAC (Special-Purpose Acquisition Company) Value Loan Mortgage, Hana and IBK in a senior financing of the purchase of a company's entire loan mortgage portfolio, which was the first acquisition by an Australian financial institution of this asset class. It also represented KOGAS, Honam Petrochemical and STX in production of a natural gas facility to be constructed in Uzbekistan. In restructuring and insolvency Shin & Kim represented Yanghai Shipping in its voluntary filing of rehabilitation after a failed M&A attempt.

Shin & Kim has always boasted a solid capital markets practice and this has increased its workload in the M&A space, particularly in regard to cross border work. This in turn has led to the firm moving up a tier in this year's rankings. Clients particularly praise the firm's "incredible response time. Things worked very fast and I appreciated Shin & Kim having my company's priorities high on their list. They provided high quality work within a very reasonable period of time and before I had even asked they had the answers I was seeking." Another client noted that the M&A team was "absolutely the best team I have ever worked with." Sound commercial sense was also raised as a key feature of the firms' offering. "I was pleasantly surprised when I worked with them. They analyse matters from not only a legal but from a commercial perspective. They do more than just lift up potential issues and are very nice people to work with. They're extremely capable," another client adds.

Rival firms agree that Shin & Kim's key strengths historical strength is in their regulatory and capital markets practice, which is headed by Chang Bok Hur and Woong-Soon Song. Peers note that Sang Man Kim as an excellent asset, while a client says Young-Hee Jo, the main contact for securitisation and structured finance, is "the first person in Korea I go to. The firm is far more helpful in providing legal solutions than other firms."

Young Chul Yim heads the competition practice and has recently worked on many landmark cases, especially in technology. "We were so happy with the level of work and attention to detail. They were literally available 24 hours a day. Quite frankly if anyone ever called me up and asked to recommend a firm in Korea I'd recommend them without hesitation. It's hard to find the lawyers who provide the technical expertise and business perspective like they do and that's what we got," says a client.

Deals
The firm represented HSBC last year in the $200 million securitisation for receivables assigned by an Asian shipping company, which proved to be a complex cross-border transaction involving 14 jurisdictions. In M&A, it advised Asiana Airlines and Daewoo E&C in the sale of their shares in Korea Express as well as Samsung Group in its disposition of shares in iMarketKorea. In competition matters the firm advised Qualcomm Incorporated in an appeal regarding the KFTC's (Korea Fair Trade Commission) decision against its business practices and subsidiaries and also advised Google on its merger with Motorola which the was scrutinised by the KFTC.