Katten represented China Shanghai-based East China Architectural Design & Research Institute Co., Ltd. (ECADI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Shanghai Xian Dai Architectural Design (Group) Co., Ltd., in the acquisition of 100 percent of the ownership interests in Wilson & Associates, LLC, a leading interior design firm in the hospitality design industry worldwide.

Feng Xue, head of the China practice and managing partner of the Shanghai office, led the Katten team which advised the client on transaction structures, drafted and negotiated the acquisition agreements and handled governmental approvals and successful closing of the acquisition. The Katten team also included Mergers and Acquisitions co-head Brooks Giles, Shanghai senior China counsel Shaun Gao, Shanghai associate Min Li, Shanghai legal consultant Jia Fei and a host of attorneys from various practice areas throughout the firm.

Katten’s Shanghai team earned this engagement from ECADI through an open bidding process in which several of the world’s leading law firms participated and competed. Having completed more than 30,000 award-winning landmark design and consulting projects all over the world, ECADI is one of the largest and most influential architectural and engineering design firms in China. Feng Xue attributes this most recent success to the continued seamless cooperation among various Katten offices:

The target has substantial operations in several major cities in the United States, including New York, Dallas and Los Angeles; Katten’s true one-firm culture allows us to utilize the resources throughout the firm’s various offices and provide seamless services to our clients. This is the reason why the client chose us  instead of other firms that are several times larger and have been in China much longer than we have been.