On 18 May 2021, China Business Law Journal announced the China Business Law Awards 2021, and Grandall won this award for its outstanding performance in domestic capital markets, inbound & outbound M&A.
Grandall continues to maintain its dominant position in the domestic capital markets. According to the public data of China Securities Regulatory Commission, Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the year 2020 has witnessed 604 companies’ initial public offering applications approved by the CSRC, 83 of which were served by Grandall Law Firm as issuer's legal advisor, accounting for 13.7% of the total. Meanwhile, among the 396 companies listed in 2020, 46 were served by Grandall as legal advisor, accounting for 11.6% of the total, topping the list of legal service providers in both cases. Especially in the registration system, since the implementation of the registration system on the GEM in June 2020, a total of 184 companies have passed the GEM listing committee meeting, 23 of which were served by Grandall as issuer's counsel, accounting for 12.5%, ranking first among law firms; at the same time, a total of 218 companies have passed the listing committee meeting on the STAR Market in 2020, of which 31 were served by Grandall as issuer's counsel, accounting for 14.2%, ranking first among law firms.
In the area of inbound M&A, according to the 2020 Report on China’s M&A Markets and Financial & Legal Advisors published by Refinitiv, Grandall Law Firm ranked second in China (by number of deals) among "Announced M&A with Chinese Involvement" legal advisors, second in China (by number of deals) among "Completed M&A with Chinese Involvement " legal advisors, and second in China (by number of deals) among "Announced China Domestic M&A", which is significantly higher than the same period in 2019. In Mergermarket's Global and Regional M&A Market Legal Advisors Report for the third quarter of 2020, Grandall ranked first in China (by deal value) among legal advisors in the "Greater China M&A Report".
In the field of outbound M&A, Grandall provided legal advice including due diligence, M&A plan design and transaction agreement negotiation for a number of cross-border M&A projects of large domestic enterprises in 2020, with many transactions involving legal and tax issues in different countries, and many M&A projects amounting to billions of RMB. In one of the transactions, Grandall represented Jiangsu Ninghu Expressway in a consortium to acquire 51% of Istanbul Third Bridge and North Ring Expressway in Turkey, which was a complex transaction structure with different companies forming a Hong Kong SPV to achieve the acquisition target. This project is also the largest cross-border investment project of China in Turkey and the first overseas highway M&A project of China.