King & Wood Mallesons has acted as deal counsel for an international consortium of China Travel Financial Holdings Co., Limited (CTS), Pepper Australia Pty Ltd (Pepper) and York Capital Management Global Advisors, LLC (York) in their acquisition of PrimeCredit Limited and Shenzhen PrimeCredit Limited (together, PrimeCredit) from Standard Chartered Bank, and the simultaneous reorganisation and financing of those entities.

PrimeCredit is a leading consumer finance provider in Hong Kong, focusing on origination of personal loans and credit cards, and has a large customer base in southern China with an important hub in Shenzhen. It has assets under management of $US1.15 billion and over 132,000 customers.

The ground breaking deal included the first ever deregulation of a Hong Kong DTC into a money lender, a global consortium structure, a substantial mortgage book sale to The Bank of East Asia, Limited and a series of consumer receivable securitisations.

The deal required a specialised cross boarder team to navigate the approval processes for the acquisition of regulated consumer businesses in both Hong Kong and China, and to structure the acquisition, reorganisation and financing arrangements.

Commenting on the deal, KWM lead partner, Anne-Marie Neagle, said “We are delighted to have been able to support the consortium on this ground breaking acquisition. Our cross border team was able to help facilitate this complex deal, which will extend the Hong Kong and Chinese footprint of the consortium members and help them to grow their Asian networks.”

KWM partner, Richard Mazzochi, noted “This deal reflects the strong interest that we continue to see from institutions in the Hong Kong financial services sector. We expect to see more deals in this sector.”

The core KWM team included Anne-Marie Neagle, Josh Cole, Hayden Flinn, Richard Mazzochi, Paul McBride, Jason Qiu and Yingmao Tang.