Southeast Asia

The Singapore law firm is reorganising into four specialist verticals, betting that sector depth will win mandates as wealth conflicts, crypto cases and cross-border enforcements increase across Asia.

Welcome to the list of winners in the market awards across Gold, Silver and Bronze of Asia's Best Companies 2026.

Recent deals have involved hotel, food delivery and energy assets from firms in Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and Thailand. Japanese corporates are seeking diversification in western markets.

Despite growing investor confidence, a challenging fundraising environment in the region persists. The role of AI in deals is gaining in importance.

As investors show more confidence in China's onshore bond market, Singapore's UOB priced a three-year panda bond at 1.83% on March 18, while Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas also issued panda bonds worth over Rmb5bn this month.

Across four tranches, it the Singapore firm's inaugural Australian issuance and continues the infrastructure platform's fundraising momentum with its largest private placement.

Singapore-based Indran Thana is joining in June from UBS.

The logistics and real estate business, which has operations in Singapore and Japan, raised S$1.2bn on the main exchange but listed in a difficult week for equities amid war in the Middle East.

SC's operating profit grew 6% last year; Zurich Australia snaps up life insurer ClearView; Citi Vietnam appoints Thai Nguyet Minh as head of markets.