Ichikara Inc. - B round equity financing of JPY 1.9 billion

Kei Ito is one of the leading partners of the Firm’s investment fund/asset management practice group. Mr. Ito has significant experience in various investment funds (ranging from traditional mutual funds to ETFs and to alternative investments such as private equity funds, and to climate funds and funds with a sustainable investment objective), providing asset management firms and other clients with regulatory advice, securities transactions, banking, derivatives, FinTech, structured finance transactions and a wide variety of other finance areas. Mr. Ito is very well versed in international finance transactions, catering to both domestic and international clients on various cross-border matters. Mr. Ito is also responsible for the Firm’s China practice.

Having worked as a partner in a prestigious law firm in China for about 3 years, in September 2010, Cuiping decided to come to Japan and work as one of the leaders of our China Practice Team, so as to take a step closer to her clients willing to expand their business globally and to help resolve their foreign legal issues more timely and actively. As an international lawyer specialized in the legal and business practice of both China and Japan, she has participated in plenty of investment and M&A projects between China and Japan using her fluent Chinese and Japanese. She also helps her clients to expand their business both domestically and globally using her strong social network established via numerous cross-border projects. Besides general corporate practice and corporate governance, she also devotes herself to cutting-edge legal issues such as the protection of data or personal information, presents creative resolutions to her clients, and provides them with continuous support on their overseas business. She also brings the latest legal news regarding China and Japan to her clients proactively not only by publishing articles, but also by attending multiple business seminars as a speaker.

Since joining Nishimura & Asahi in 2006, Yasunori has dealt with various M&A transactions in Japan and overseas. In particular, with respect to transactions involving listed companies, he excels at strategizing flexibly based on the complex circumstances and needs of the parties concerned, and seeing such projects to completion. When handling M&A transactions, he places an emphasis on maximizing the benefit to his clients while giving due consideration to the overall benefit to all of those involved. In addition to the above, Yasunori has advised on defenses against hostile takeovers and responses to shareholder activism for companies such as Toshiba Machine (currently Shibaura Machine) and Tokyo Kikai Seisakusho. In recent years, he has also provided advice for the acquisition side of hostile takeovers, with industrial companies as his clients.