The Singapore office of Watson, Farley & Williams LLP (“WFW”) is pleased to announce that it has advised a syndicate of banks led by The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. as agent and UniCredit Bank AG, Singapore Branch as security trustee in relation to a US$479,557,744 term facility provided to FSL Trust Management Pte. Ltd, as trustee-manager for First Ship Lease Trust, to refinance its existing credit facility.

Herbert Smith has hired Philip Lee as a partner in its Singapore office focusing on debt capital markets (DCM).

International law firm Stephenson Harwood is advising Indonesian airline Lion Air on the biggest ever airline order for 230 Boeing 737 aircrafts (including Boeing’s new 737 MAX aircraft), valued at US$21.7 billion. The deal includes purchase option rights for another 150 aircrafts, which would bring the total value of the order to US$35 million.

DLA Piper today announced the appointment of Troy Doyle as a partner in its Singapore office to lead the firm’s restructuring and distressed investment team in Asia. Troy is a leading restructuring lawyer with more than 13 years’ experience in the Asia Pacific region. He joins DLA Piper from Norton Rose Australia and was previously the restructuring practice leader at Clifford Chance for South East Asia, located in Singapore.

Shearman & Sterling is representing the Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) in its sale of a 15% post-money stake to Mizuho Corporate Bank, Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. (Mizuho), for approximately $567.3 million. Mizuho will subscribe for approximately 347.6 million new ordinary shares of Vietcombank at VND34,000 (US$1.62) per share and will become the sole foreign strategic investor in Vietcombank and largest shareholder in Vietcombank after the government of Vietnam. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012.

Law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner today announced the appointment of international arbitration partner Kent Phillips to its Singapore office. This senior hire is the first contentious appointment based in the region and Kent is the fourth partner appointment to the Singapore office in the same year that BLP opened in Hong Kong.

Global law firm White & Case LLP has advised GMR Energy (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. (formerly known as Island Power) on the SG$1 billion greenfield financing of an 800-megawatt power project on Jurong Island, Singapore.

Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, announced today that it will extend its geographic presence in Asia by opening an office of Mayer Brown JSM, its Asian practice, in Singapore.  The new office will focus initially on four primary areas of legal practice:  asset finance, project finance, energy and international arbitration.

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP has advised OCI Company Ltd. (“OCI”) in the issue of 14,888,000 global depositary receipts (“GDR”) which are to be listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited.

O’Melveny & Myers LLP has served as international counsel to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, ICICI Securities, and JM Financial, the underwriters in the US$1 billion further public offering of the shares of Power Finance Corporation Limited.  The team was led by O’Melveny counsel Pooja Sinha and partner David Makarechian, both based in the Firm’s Singapore office.