Yuval Tal is head of the Hong Kong office as well as a Partner within the Corporate Department. He is a general corporate and securities lawyer with diverse expertise in mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, cross-border transactions, and corporate and actual estate finance.
Yuval Tal - Yuval's practice includes representing clients on financing, mergers and acquisitions (public and private, debt and equity), reorganizations and structured finance. He represents clients from their formation through their sale or public offering. He also advises his customers on day-to-day operational matters, such as internal structuring, commercial transactions, employment, consulting arrangements and equity incentive programs. Yuval represents monetary institutions at the same time as public and private organizations. He has represented customers in diverse industries ranging from hotels to flight training to medical devices, from telecommunications to fitness to entertainment.
Because moving to Hong Kong, Yuval has represented Asian and foreign-based clients in inbound and outbound transactions. Recent representations consist of: Mori Building Co., Ltd., 1 of Japan’s largest real estate developers, in its investment in Hyatt Hotels Corp.; The Recording Academy (Grammy) in its strategic transaction with the Beijing Music Festival; GTC China, a subsidiary of the Kardan Group, in M&A transactions with respect to its China genuine estate investments; Bessemer Venture Partners in its investment in Orient Green Power Company Limited, an Indian company focused on renewable energy generation; a U.S. based private equity fund on the establishment of its business in Hong Kong and China and partnering with a China based sponsor, and numerous joint venture and related agreements between foreign and China based entities in industries ranging from monetary services to entertainment to architecture.
In his extensive experience representing private equity and venture capital funds, Yuval has represented U.S., European and Israeli-based funds, such as JPMorgan, Bessemer Venture Partners, 1 Equity Partners, Starwood Capital, Colony Capital, DLJ, Thor Urban Retail Fund, Big Flower, Star Ventures, Formula Ventures and Giza Venture Capital in structuring, restructuring, managing and disposing of investments in Asia, Europe and the United States.
Yuval also is really a member of the Lodging & Gaming Group and has worked on transactions involving hotel development and construction, licensing and franchising, management, acquisition and sale, restructuring and public offerings of hotel and casino businesses. Yuval's hospitality work has included transactions from Korea to the United States. He has worked on projects involving Accor, Caesar’s/Harrah’s, Colony Capital, Garret Group, Hilton, Hyatt, Inter-Continental, Raffles, Starwood Capital, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Swissotel, Wyndham and many others. Yuval has worked on single and multi-property transactions and regularly represents both owners and managers. Recent and current projects contain Accor's $1.3 billion sale of Red Roof Inn; the $625 million sale-and-management-back transaction for eight U.S. Sofitels between Accor as well as a venture of Gem Realty Capital and Whitehall; the sale-and-management-back transaction of the Crowne Plaza Times Square; a $300 million plus development of the Setai in New York City; the development of a major mixed-use property in Israel; and representing Mori Developing of Japan in its hotel investments. Yuval is a regular speaker on issues related to hotel management agreements in various hospitality related conferences such as the Hotel Investment Conference Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong is really a regular participant inside the Genuine Estate Development Roundtable organized by the Cornell-Nanyang Institute of Hospitality Management in Singapore and has recently participated within the World Export Development Forum in Istanbul.
Yuval’s practice also consists of licensing and franchising transactions and he has done so for high-tech and bio-tech companies, also as for customers in other industries.
Prior to rejoining Proskauer in 1999, Yuval practiced law in Israel, representing Israeli clients in transactions in Europe and the United States and European and U.S.-based clients in transactions in Israel. He handled transactions for major publicly traded Israeli companies such as Clal (Israel) Ltd., LifeWatch, Kitan Consolidated Ltd., Orckit Communications Ltd., ECI Telecom Ltd., Scitex Corporation Ltd. and Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. Because joining Proskauer, Yuval has continued to represent Israeli clients on a wide range of corporate and securities matters, such as the Swiss public offerings of Card Guard, as well as its acquisitions in the United States; the public providing on NASDAQ of Ituran Location and Control Ltd., which was completed in September 2005; the public offering of BioCancell Therapeutics Inc. on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange in 2006; and the public offering of Advanced Technology Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, on the AMEX.