APREA Connect

Jeremy Ong is a partner in Baker McKenzie's Hong Kong office and he leads the REITs practice in Hong Kong. He has over 15 years of experience advising REITs on their formation, acquisitions, disposals, equity/debt capital raising exercises and liability management exercises, and advised on almost all of Hong Kong's largest REIT transactions.

Jeremy has been recognised by Legal 500 as a "Next Generation Partner" in two key areas for REITs (investment funds; real estate) and his practice is also described by Chambers as “a trusted adviser to REITs” which is “often instructed to assist clients with IPOs and capital raisings”.

Tom Gaffney is the Regional Managing Director of CBRE Hong Kong, with oversight for all of CBRE's business activities. Based in Hong Kong, his primary responsibilities include operational management of all major business lines, client relationship management, engagement programs, personnel development and talent acquisition for CBRE. As the leader of our business in Hong Kong, Tom works with a diverse array of teams and stakeholders to develop and implement CBRE's strategy. As an advocate for diversity and inclusion, he is committed to making the CBRE Hong Kong office the workplace of choice for its people through innovative initiatives.

Tom joined CBRE in 2016 as Managing Director for Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. He has more than 20 years of experience in commercial real estate. His experience spans from working with both service providers and clients, with broad experience across a variety of executive positions in investment, asset management, to commercial transactions and advisory. More than 20 years of Tom's career has been in Asia Pacific, including Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore and Thailand. He crossed from JLL where he held the position of Head of Retail, Hong Kong and China and was a member of its Global Retail Board and co-chairman of Retail for Asia Pacific.

From 2006 to 2011, Tom worked for Hongkong Land in Commercial and Retail Asset Management, holding positions in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand. Originally based in Singapore where he was responsible for the regional retail asset management and leasing of Hongkong Land's South Asia retail portfolio, he later served as General Manager and Country Head of Thailand and was responsible for the management and leasing of their luxury shopping mall, Gaysorn.

Keith joined CBRE in 2021 as the Executive Director of Capital Advisors for Hong Kong, focuses on working with CBRE Hong Kong and regional Capital Advisors and Capital Markets teams to further develop the Capital Advisors business - a financial services arm of CBRE primarily advising investors on structuring real estate transactions. With his industry know-how and strong background in investment banking, Keith helps further strengthen CBRE's in-house capital advisory capabilities by zeroing in on three core offerings, including equity and debt placements, principal investments and M&A activities.

Keith has over 10 years of professional experience in real estate industry. Prior to joining CBRE, Keith was the CEO and Founder of Solace International, a company specialized in principal investments and management consultancy. From 2015 to 2020, Keith worked for Macquarie Group where he was responsible for buy-side mandates to deploy equity into renewable energy infrastructure projects, in addition to implementing M&A, Equity Capital Markets (ECM) and Debt Capital Markets (DCM) activity for a number of established infrastructure developers across Asia. Prior to Macquarie, Keith worked with Colliers International and JLL, respectively.

Martijn de Lange is a Managing Director of BMS Group. Martijn has over 15 years of combined insurance, legal and tax experience and advises private equity and corporate investors on M&A and tax insurance. Prior to joining BMS, Martijn worked for Aon, being the first tax insurance broker in Asia. Before that, he worked as a tax lawyer in Europe and as in-house counsel for an MNC.

Tiffany Wong is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal’s Restructuring Practice in Hong Kong. She brings more than 20 years of experience in restructuring, insolvency and dispute resolution. Ms. Wong advises borrowers and lenders in consensual restructuring and acts as a court-appointed officer in insolvency situations and disputes.

With experience spanning international and Chinese restructuring regimes, Ms. Wong advises clients in challenging cross-border projects involving complex structures across multiple jurisdictions.

Ms. Wong is one of the receivers of the YF Life Centre (formerly China Evergrande Centre) appointed by a group of syndicate lenders. Ms. Wong is also a Joint & Several Liquidator of Genting Hong Kong Ltd., a cruise and entertainment operator headquartered in Asia. She participated in the restructuring of Luckin Coffee Inc., as one of the Joint Provisional Liquidators following its admission of accounting fraud. After multiple regulatory investigations in the US and the PRC and a loss of investor confidence, Ms. Wong and her team in Hong Kong, Cayman Islands and the People’s Republic of China helped the company’s management reinforce internal systems and supported an operational turnaround and negotiations with creditors. The scheme of arrangement was approved unanimously by the voting creditors, marking a successful restructuring in less than two years.

Ms. Wong has led numerous restructuring cases in China, including Shanghai Chaori Solar’s, and advised 34 Chinese banks on preserving their interests in a real-estate borrower with $2.5 billion offshore bonds and $7.6 billion in onshore debts. Ms. Wong has also acted as a trustee of the estates of bankrupt individuals and as court-appointed administrator of the estates of high-net-worth deceased or mentally incapacitated individuals.

Prior to joining A&M, Ms. Wong was a Partner and Head of Insolvency at KPMG China.

Ms. Wong earned a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in business management and professional accounting from Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

• Yvette Chan is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal in Hong Kong. She brings 20 years of tax advisory experience, specialising in China and Hong Kong taxation.
• Ms. Chan has assisted her clients to undertake investments with regard to transaction structuring and devising tax efficient strategies for implementing business operations and arrangements for their initial greenfield investment or mergers & acquisitions in or outside Greater China. In addition, Ms. Chan has advised on a number of tax structuring, tax due diligence, tax modeling review, mergers & acquisitions, corporate restructuring, pre-IPO restructuring, leasing, and tax compliance projects, and specialises in the structuring of M&A and financial transactions from a tax perspective.
• Ms. Chan services clients in a wide range of industries including real estate, private equity and investment fund, infrastructure, etc.
• Yvette’s real estate fund clients include Actis real estate funds, Angelo Gordon, BlackRock, Blackstone, CPPIB, GAW Capital, Kailong, Macquarie real estate funds, Morgan Stanley real estate funds, PAG, Paladin (Country Garden), Phoenix Property Investors, Quadreal, SSG Ares, TCC Capital, etc. Yvette also advise other corporate as well as family offices with respect to their real estate operations and transactions.
• Ms. Chan has co-authored articles on Chinese taxation in the International Tax Review, Euromoney, China Tax Intelligence and Asia-Pacific Journal of Taxation. Ms. Chan has also taught internal courses and spoken at external seminars on Chinese taxation, particularly in relation to non-resident tax issues for inbound investments, as well as Chinese tax issues and considerations on outbound investments.
• Before joining A&M, Ms. Chan spent 5 years with KPMG in London and over 9 years in their Hong Kong office, most recently serving as partner in the M&A tax team.
• Ms. Chan earned a bachelor and master degree in Mathematical Sciences from the University of Oxford. She is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and a member of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Taxation in the United Kingdom, and the Taxation Institute of Hong Kong. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Cathy Lai is the Business Development Lead of BMS Asia responsible for driving the firm’s business growth in Asia. Cathy has over 13 years insurance broking and advisory experience with 8 years in M&A insurance solutions and 5 years in general insurance. Prior to joining BMS, Cathy worked for global insurance broking firms leading the M&A insurance practice in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as in a senior position in the global client practice. She specializes in insurance solutions for multinational conglomerates, banks and private equity clients ranging from operational insurance placement, insurance due diligence/review, lender’s insurance advisory to transactional risk solutions.