ITOCHU Corporation - Acquisition of shares in Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., Ltd.

Asa Shinkawa has been a partner in the M&A/corporate group at Nishimura & Asahi since 2001. She has a long and successful history of advising Japanese and international corporations and private equity firms. Ms. Shinkawa has advised on mergers and acquisitions, tender offers, cross border transactions, domestic acquisitions and divestitures and going private transactions, restructurings and spin offs, joint ventures, and numerous other kinds of transactions and commercial arrangements. Ms. Shinkawa has been recognized as one of the world's leading lawyers in the field of Corporate/Mergers and Acquisitions in Chambers Global - The World's Leading Lawyers for Business, since 2009, and is ranked as one of the top practitioners in Japan in the field of Corporate/M&A. She was awarded "Dealmaker of the Year" at the ALB Japan Law Awards 2022,  "Dealmaker of the Year, North Asia" at the ALB Women in Law Awards 2021 and "Woman Lawyer of the Year" at the ALB Japan Law Awards 2020, "M&A Deal of the Year” at the IFLR Asia-Pacific Awards 2022, "Private Equity Deal of the Year” at The Asia Legal Awards 2021 and "Legal Expertise: Creating a New Standard” at the Financial Times Asia-Pacific Innovative Lawyer Awards 2019, and has received many other accolades. In addition, she has advised on M&A transactions and integrations/business combinations between public corporations in which merger control considerations were a critical prerequisite for the consummation of the transactions. Ms. Shinkawa has also advised extensively on the application of antitrust law in relation to joint ventures, business alliances and other types of cooperative arrangements between competitors, sole-distributorship arrangements, distribution agreements, dealer agreements and license arrangements. She was engaged in the reform of the electricity system in Japan, as an expert member of governmental committees under the Electricity and Gas Market Surveillance Commission  and various committees of the Advisory committees for Natural resourse and Energy of the METI from 2015 to 2021.

Hideo’s practice includes a broad mix of acquisition finance, project finance, cross-border syndicated lending, equity investment, and other innovative financing products. Hideo also has strong expertise in banking and frequently advises financial institutions, inter alia, on matters including debt restructuring and banking regulations. Leveraging his significant experience in investment-banking matters, he regularly advices financial institutions, major companies and governmental agencies on various corporate matters.

Takenobu Tsuruoka is a Partner in Nishimura & Asahi's acquisition finance group. Takenobu has extensive experience in the debt finance area, with a particular focus on acquisition financing, sustainable financing, project financing and securitization. He has a wealth of experience representing global private equity funds in high-profile deals, and he has been active in advising Japanese financial institutions as lenders or arrangers on leveraged financing, project financing and securitization. He gives due consideration to the market practice when providing legal advice.

Junko Wakabayashi specializes in antitrust and competition law. She has extensive experience with various antitrust matters and issues, including merger filings, cartels, transactional matters, and compliance, in both domestic and cross-border cases. She regularly engages with global clients and negotiates with competition authorities on their behalf. Due to her prior experience at the Ministry Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism, where she engaged in policy and rule making, as well as operations, and built a network of connections in government offices, Junko has a deep knowledge and understanding of regulations and government affairs, particularly those that impact transportation industries (e.g., aviation, automotive). She was seconded to a major energy company, where she acquired familiarity with the energy industry. Her wide range of experience enables her to provide precise, tailored advice that accurately addresses and responds to each client’s needs and business operations.

Since joining Nishimura & Asahi, Akira has been involved in numerous corporate and M&A deals, including mergers, acquisitions, corporate reorganizations, capital and business alliances, joint ventures, and take-private transactions by PE funds. In particular, Akira has advised on many cross-border transactions. While seconded to ITOCHU Corporation in 2019-2020, Akira was involved in energy- and infrastructure-related transactions, and he has continued to advise on these transactions since his return.