Strength and Depth

The firm has grown from a firm that specialised in arranging bilateral loans for corporate clients in 1976 to being one of the oldest and leading debt capital markets services practices in Malaysia. Our firm has advised on many pioneering debt issuances and our market recognised practitioners are well-known in industry circles for the depth of their advice, pragmatism and excellent closing track record.

Our Innovative Approach

The Malaysian bond market has achieved a period of unprecedented growth since the 1990s. Over the years, we have assisted our clients to respond to these rapid market changes through our innovative finance solutions for complex transactions. This approach has contributed to our acting as transaction counsel on a number of market-pioneering and leading transactions, including:

• the world’s first exchangeable Sukuk (and also the largest ever exchangeable issuance in Malaysia);
• the world’s first perpetual sukuk issuance;
• the world’s first Green SRI sukuk issuance;
• Malaysia’s first municipal bonds issuance;
• Malaysia’s first retail and exchange traded bonds issuance.

Our regular involvement in market-significant transactions, particularly in the field of Islamic debt capital markets, is recognised worldwide as demonstrated by our ranking by Bloomberg’s Global Legal Adviser League Tables as the world’s No.1 law firm (by deal count) in Islamic debt capital markets for 9 consecutive years from 2013 – 2021 as Manager/Lender’s Counsel

Our Market Recognition:

We are privileged and grateful for our achievements to be acknowledged and recognised as follows:

Awards

• National Law Firm of The Year – International Financial Law Review Asia Awards, 2007 and 2014
• Islamic Finance Law Firm of The Year – ALB Malaysia Law Awards 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023
• Banking and Financial Services Law Firm of the Year – ALB Malaysia Law Awards 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021
• Islamic Finance News (IFN) Law Awards 2018: ESG, Green, SRI Law Firm of the Year
• IFN Law Awards 2019: ESG, Green, SRI Law Firm of the Year; Energy & Natural Resources Law Firm of The Year
• Malaysia Capital Markets Firm of The Year – Asian-Mena Counsel Awards 2018 and 2019
• Malaysia Law Firm of the Year for Capital Markets – In-House Community Awards 2021 and 2022.

Rankings / Publications

Our expertise is acknowledged by the following publications:

• Chambers Asia Pacific 2022 – Ranked Band 1 for Debt Capital Markets
• IFLR 1000 2022 – Ranked Tier 1 for Capital Markets
• Legal 500 2022 – Ranked Tier 1 for Capital Markets
• Asialaw Profiles 2022– Ranked ‘Outstanding’ for Capital Markets
• Bloomberg’s Global Legal Adviser League Tables 2018 – World’s Top 20 law firms, as Manager’s Counsel with the highest volume of Asia ex-Japan Issuer G3 Currency Bonds

Our Deal Experience:

Our experience includes acting as transaction counsel in the following recent and market-significant deals:

Bonds and Sukuk

• Malaysia’s 1st Issuance of Municipal Bonds by the City Council of Pasir Gudang (2005)
• World’s 1st Corporate Perpetual Sukuk by Malaysian Airlines (2012)
• PDS Issuances in Malaysia by various international issuers, including from Hong Kong, Indonesia, United Arab Emirates, Korea and Turkey
• First-to-Market PDS Issuance in Malaysia by a Turkish participation bank issuer, Türkiye Finans Katilim Bankasi (2014)

Financial Institutions’ Regulatory Capital

• Regulatory Capital Transactions; Basel II; HSBC Malaysia (2007)
• Non-Innovative Tier 1 Capital Securities programmes; Basel II; Aseambankers (2008)
• Senior/subordinated Tier 2 capital medium term notes; Basel III; RHB Bank (2014)
• Tier 2 Subordinated Sukuk Murabahah Programme; Basel III, AmIslamic Bank (2014)
• First Tier-2 Islamic debt programme and the first Basel III-compliant Islamic debt programme by a development financial institution in Malaysia; Tier 2 Subordinated Sukuk Murabahah Programme; Basel III; Bank Rakyat (2016)
• Multi-instrument issuance of Senior Sukuk Murabahah, Tier 2 Sukuk Murabahah and/or perpetual Additional Tier 1 Capital Sukuk Wakalah; Basel III, Affin Islamic (2018)