Terence Quek is the Deputy Head of the M&A practice with more than 22 years of experience in mergers and acquisitions, PE/VC deals, local and cross-border joint ventures, corporate restructurings, corporate rescues and general commercial law.
He has advised on the sale and purchase of companies, undertakings and businesses in almost every sector of industry, including technology, banking, insurance, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, property development and healthcare, just to name a few.
Terence is also actively involved in a wide spectrum of investment transactions for both investors and entrepreneurs/founders, ranging from seed financing to early-stage investments to growth capital as well as exits, and joint venture deals involving both local and cross-border entities.
He is recommended by Chambers Asia Pacific and recognised as a key lawyer by The Legal 500 for being “excellent” and “offering a ready ear to bounce ideas with the client throughout a transaction at all hours of the day, offering insights and solutions“. He is commended by clients in IFLR1000‘s report as being “very approachable and pays close attention to clients’ needs“.
Clients also described him as “[having a] very in depth understanding of subject matter” and for “[providing] solutions and a different perspective to solving issues”.
Noted for driving the firm’s growth in Singapore’s startup space, Terence has also been ranked in Chambers Asia-Pacific 2024 for his vast experience in acting for investors and emerging companies on investment and financing mandates.
Terence also specialises in aviation transactions, with in-depth knowledge and experience in this niche industry.
He is a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee, and formerly the Deputy Head of the Corporate Commercial practice group.
He graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2001 and was admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2002 and to the Roll of Solicitors of England and Wales in 2008.
Terence was a tutor with the NUS Law School’s Legal Case Studies programme. He was also recognised by Singapore Business Review as one of Singapore’s 40 Most Influential Lawyers Aged 40 and Under in 2015.
EXPERIENCE
Private Equity & Venture Capital Practice
- Advised Sea Limited (“Sea”) on its US$884 million IPO in New York, with an over-allotment option for the underwriters to purchase an additional 8.84 million American depository shares. A leading internet company in Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore, Sea also provides digital entertainment services, such as FIFA and League of Legends, digital financial services Airpay and e-commerce platform Shopee.
- Acted for a PE infrastructure fund in a US$200m investment in a Singapore-based downstream Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) business developing 12 city gas distribution networks throughout India.
- Acted for Baring Private Equity Asia in its US$70 million acquisition of a substantial controlling stake in the Viewpoint group.
- Acted for SDAX Financial Pte. Ltd. in its US$50 million Series B2 round with Muscat Precious Metals Refining Company LLC.
- Acted for a PE fund in a highly complex transaction involving the acquisition of a collection of 12 companies across 6 jurisdictions engaged in cloud-related services, and data centre and co-location services to create a unified platform in the data services space.
- Acts for a Fintech accelerator affiliated to a major Singapore bank in pre-seed, seed and early-stage investments.
- Acted for tech unicorn Voyager Innovations, the digital arm of NYSE and PSE-listed PLDT, in its US$80 million Series C2 fundraise.
- Assisted Japanese financial services firm Credit Saison in its US$60 million Series B2 investment round in Julo, an Indonesian peer-to-peer lending platform.
- Acted for Credit Saison Co., Ltd. in a Series C round of equity funding in a platform-as-a-service company that enables major consumer brands, banks, telcos and regional e-commerce sites to issue secure mobile payment cards to reach millions of shoppers in Asia and other emerging markets.
- Acted for Ally Capital Holdings Limited in its US$50 million Series A investment in Silicon Box Pte. Ltd., as the lead investor in the start-up’s US$156 million Series A funding round.
- Assisted Pace Enterprise Holdings Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-based Buy Now Pay Later solution, with its US$40 million Series A investment round, which raised capital from Japan’s Marubeni Ventures, South Korea’s Atinum Partners, Taiwan’s AppWorks, Indonesia’s Alpha JWC, and Singapore’s UOB Venture Management, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India, and Genesis Alternative Ventures.
- Acted for Konvy, a Thai beauty ecommerce platform, in its second US$11 million series A funding round, bringing its total Series A round to US$21 million.
- Acted for Next Gen Foods Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-incorporated food tech start-up offering plant-based meat products, in its seed financing round which raised net proceeds of approximately US$30 million. This is the largest seed financing round globally in the plant-based meat space, according to Pitchbook.
- Acted for Insignia Ventures in its US$10 million Series A investment in Konvy, Thailand’s leading beauty e-commerce platform.
- Acted for Funding Societies, a peer-to-business financing platform, in a US$10 million Series A investment led by Sequoia India. The investment was the largest amount raised by a crowdfunding platform in Southeast Asia at that time. Also acted for Funding Societies in its US$25 million Series B funding round led by Softbank Ventures Korea.
- Acted for EV Growth as lead investor in a $10 million Series B investment in Homage, an on-demand caregiving services platform that uses a proprietary matching engine that pairs seniors with the best-suited care professionals for their specific needs.
- Acted for Glory Ltd, a cash automation tech company, in its investment in Socash Pte Ltd, which develops and provides a mobile phone-based cash withdrawal application. Glory Ltd was the lead investor in the US$6 million Series B fundraising, alongside Vertex Ventures and SC Ventures.
Mergers & Acquisitions/Joint Ventures
- Acted for Hong Kong-listed Logan Property Group on a joint venture with Nanshan Group Singapore Co. Pte. Ltd. to develop a land site for private condominium housing, which was acquired by way of a bid for a residential government land site that crossed the S$1 billion mark for the first time ever.
- Acted for Credit Saison Co., Ltd in a joint venture with Grab Inc to provide a wide range of micro-financing products and services via the joint venture company, Grab Financial Services Asia (“GFSA”). GFSA provides an alternative to traditional credit scoring methods by tapping onto other data points from Grab’s app, combined with Credit Saison’s expertise in credit scoring, risk management and product formulation to assess credit worthiness.
- Acted for Honeywell International Inc and Honeywell (Singapore) Pte Ltd on the Singapore law aspects of the sale of its Consumer Products Group business to Rank Group Limited in a cash transaction valued at approximately US$950 million.
- Acted for Jebsen & Jessen in the divestment of its 50% stake in MHE-Demag to Finnish-listed company, Konecranes for approximately S$222 million. MHE-Demag is a leading supplier of industrial cranes and its material handling business includes engineering, manufacturing and maintaining a comprehensive range of industrial cranes and hoists. The group operates in eight countries, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, with approximately 1800 employees.
- Acted for Jebsen & Jessen Pte. Ltd. in its acquisition of the industrial products division of the Konecranes group across various countries including Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
- Acted for STMicroelectronics in the re-organisation and transfer of STMicroelectronic’s Singapore flash memory business to a special purpose vehicle (“SPV”), which was combined with the other global flash memory assets from STMicroelectronics and Intel Corporation to form the world’s third largest non-volatile memory provider. Total assets transferred to the SPV, including a wafer fabrication plant, were valued at US$428 million.
- Advised a leading SaaS platform that provides review and loyalty-related plug-ins to various global e-commerce platforms, in the sale of its business and assets to a Canadian listed company for up to US$110 million.
- Acted for a team of veterinary specialists in the sale of the Mount Pleasant chain of clinics to the US-based Mars Veterinary Health group.
- Acted for Delaware North Companies Pty Ltd (Australian arm of the Delaware North Companies group) and Singapore Food Industries Pte Ltd (a subsidiary of listed SATS Ltd), which set up a joint venture company to operate premium restaurants, food and beverage outlets and a central kitchen at the Singapore Sports Hub at Kallang with a contract value of over S$1 billion. Singapore Sports Hub is Singapore’s largest flagship public-private partnership (“PPP”) project and the largest sports facility infrastructure PPP project in the world. The deal involved Singapore Sports Council, its lenders and six other sub-contractors.
- Acted for SATS Ltd in a S$50 million joint venture with BRF GmbH, a subsidiary of global food company, BRF S.A. which is listed on both the BM&F BOVESPA in São Paulo and the New York Stock Exchange. The joint venture company’s business encompasses meat processing and manufacturing of branded food products for distribution to retailers, restaurants, wholesalers, distributors and ship chandlers.
- Acted for the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) in connection with the corporatisation of its airport undertakings (including Singapore Changi Airport) and the restructuring of CAAS.
- Acted for ISQ GMF Asia Infrastructure Holdings Pte. Ltd. in its subscription for warrants valued at approximately US$45 million in AGP LNG Holdco (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-incorporated company that is part of the Atlantic Gulf & Pacific group.
- Acted for PhillipCapital Group in its acquisition of HwangDBS Commercial Bank Plc in Cambodia and its wholly-owned subsidiary, HwangDBS Securities (Cambodia) Plc from Hwang-DBS (Malaysia) Bhd (a Malaysian financial services group), in a US$40 million deal.
- Acted for KGI Asia (Holdings) Pte Ltd in its acquisition of AmFraser Securities Pte Ltd, a brokerage that engages in stockbroking, securities trading, margin financing facility, equity research and corporate finance and advisory services, for S$38 million.
- Acted for Lonza Group, one of the world’s leading suppliers in the pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries, in:
- the sale of its cell culture biologic manufacturing facility to Genentech Singapore Pte Ltd (a member of the Roche Group);
- the sale of its chemicals manufacturing facility to the Perstorp Group; and
- the investment by Biomedical Sciences Investment Fund Pte Ltd in Lonza Biologics Tuas Pte Ltd, which operates one of Lonza Group’s large scale mammalian cell culture manufacturing facility in Singapore.
- Acted for Sumitomo Corporation in the sale of its Vietnamese subsidiary (which manufactures petrochemical storage solutions) to US-based Greif, Inc.
Corporate Transactions
- Advised on, drafted and filed amalgamation documents for the re-organisation of the respective Singapore subsidiaries of multi-national corporations (“MNCs”) operating in various industry sectors, including technology, finance, manufacturing and food.
- Acted for banks, financial institutions, MNCs, family offices and other investment holding companies in connection with capital reduction exercises, dividends in specie and other corporate transactions.
Corporate Commercial and Advisory Work
- Acted for a global fast-fashion label in the review and negotiation of its leases for more than 12 commercial retail outlets around Singapore, and its office and warehouse. Also represents the same fast-fashion label in the review of its warehousing agreements and logistics agreements and advising on employment matters and issues relating to importation, packaging, labelling and advertising of products.
- Advises various MNCs on:
distribution, marketing and agency agreements, consultancy contracts, rental agreements, service contracts, manufacturing agreements, supply agreements, management agreements, research and development agreements and other commercial agreements; and
employment-related issues, including confidentiality obligations, restrictive covenants, retrenchment exercises, hiring and termination of C-suite and management-level executives, drafting of employee share option plans and regulatory obligations vis-à-vis employees
- Acted for several Singapore statutory boards in connection with various corporate matters, including drafting of tender documents, event management contracts, sponsorship agreements, database licence agreements, research collaboration contracts, collective agreements, leases and other commercial agreements.
- Acted for a variety of pharmaceutical companies in relation to the drafting and negotiation of outsourcing contracts, warehousing and logistics agreements, clinical trial agreements, and software development agreements.
PUBLICATIONS
- Lead Author, Singapore Chapter: Law and Practice; Trends and Developments, Technology M&A Global Practice Guide, Chambers and Partners (2021 – 2024)
- Co-Author, Singapore Chapter: Trends and Developments, Corporate M&A Global Practice Guide, Chambers and Partners (2023 – 2024)
- Co-Author, Singapore Chapter: Law & Practice; Trends & Developments, Private Equity Global Practice Guide, Chambers and Partners (2022 – 2024)