By John Lo, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood–Hong Kong
Hong Kong is blessed with many favorable elements for business growth. The most prominent factors often cited for Hong Kong’s business success include its gateway role to China, the rule of law, and a location where goods, services and finance move freely. Such a positive environment has led to many success stories, particularly in the tech sector.
Continue Reading Angel Investing in Hong Kong: Part VI Conclusion
By John Lo, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood–Hong Kong
Nurturing the growth of a science and technology focused sector became a significant part of the government policies of the first post-1997 administration. Under the guidance of the late Professor Tien Chang-lin, former chancellor of University of California, Berkeley, the government issued a technology blueprint for Hong Kong shortly after the changeover, which led to a new period of innovation and growth in the tech sector.
Continue Reading Angel Investing in Hong Kong: Part V Government Tech Policies
By John Lo, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood–Hong Kong
Hong Kong has a strong venture capital industry and a vibrant capital market, which together afford a much needed financial backdrop for financing growth businesses. This business friendly environment provides funds for start ups as well as exit strategies for more mature companies.
Continue Reading Angel Investing in Hong Kong: Part IV Financial Infrastructure
By Tony Dong and Alice Zhang, King & Wood’s Tax Department
It is common for multinational companies to deploy offshore holding structures or set up special purpose vehicles ("SPVs") in tax havens to make investments, enter into cross border transactions or to list their IPOs. There are various reasons for companies to utilize offshore SPVs, and tax optimization is clearly one of the top considerations. For example, a company may take advantage of preferential tax treaty provisions or align profits to a low-tax jurisdiction or tax haven. However, in recent years, governments around the world have been tightening their tax administration of cross-border tax avoidance arrangements with TPG’s recent tax dispute in Australia is the latest example. The Chinese government has been actively involved in the game, and the State Administration of Taxation ("SAT") has issued a series of regulations in 2009 to strengthen tax scrutiny on non-residents.
By John Lo, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood–Hong Kong
To a large extent, angel investment in Hong Kong has so far revolved around individual investors rather than institutions. It is useful to examine local angel financing activities by looking at the angel profiles.To date, no systematic research has been conducted regarding the number or makeup of business angels in Hong Kong. General observations indicate that the following groups, not in any order, have been spearheading the efforts: (a) former VC practitioners; (b) individuals who have made money from entrepreneurial activities or as angels; (c) second generation of the leading business families; (d) professionals such as lawyers, doctors and accountants; (e) tech executives and professionals; (f) well-to-do manufacturers who made their initial fortunes with investments in China; and (g) returnees or overseas Chinese with exposure to angel investment elsewhere.
Continue Reading Angel Investing in Hong Kong: Part III Angel Profiles & Networks
By John Lo, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood–Hong Kong
Hong Kong has perhaps one of the most heterogeneous and interesting mix of startups in the world in terms of founder makeup, location of operational base and target markets. Founders of a Hong Kong startup, for example, could be made up of individuals from a wide variety of personal backgrounds, including locals, returnees mostly from North America, foreign expats, and PRC residents and returnees, especially those hailing from the Pearl River Delta. While a “Hong Kong startup” may be taken to mean the use of a Hong Kong incorporated operating or holding company, depending on the background or special strength of its founders, its actual seat of management or key operational base could be in Hong Kong, in China, or sometimes even the U.S. The initial targeted market of startups could also vary widely from the local market, to China, Southeast Asian region or other overseas markets.
Continue Reading Angel Investing in Hong Kong: Part II Startup Scene
By Kenneth Choy, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood – Hong Kong
“Chow Sang Sang” (周生生) is a successful and well recognized name in the jewelry business. The name in Chinese has an auspicious meaning of “continuous growth” or “endless vitality of the Chow family”.
Continue Reading Family Feud in Hong Kong: Chow Sang Sang Trademark Dispute
By John Lo, Partner, Corporate, King & Wood – Hong Kong
Angel investment in Hong Kong may be on the verge of an exciting transition from being an occasional engagement of a wealthy few to a more widespread, organized form of startup financing involving many more people with the wherewithal to invest.
Continue Reading Angel Investing in Hong Kong: Part I Introduction
King & Wood’s IP Legal Group in Beijing
The Domain Name Dispute Settlement Center of CIETAC was established in December, 2000, and began operation on July, 2005, as the Internet Disputes Settlement Center. This Center accepts cases including cybersquatting of domain names (disputes on Chinese domain names, e.g. ".cn", and top-level general domain name, e.g.".com"), cybersquatting of general websites, wireless websites, text message websites, etc.
By Stephen Nelson, Partner and Head of King & Wood’s Taxation Practice
It is not uncommon for foreign investors to sell the shares of intermediate holding companies that hold the equity in Chinese companies as a way to exit their investments in China, in order to get around government approval procedures, as well as to avoid PRC tax on their capital gains. It certainly appears that these offshore transfers may be examined by the China tax authorities going forward, and may no longer escape the Chinese tax net. Recently, the State Administration of Taxation (the “SAT”) issued the circular Guoshuihan [2009] No. 698, “Strengthening the Tax Administration of Equity Transfers by Non-resident Enterprises” ("Circular 698”), which, for the first time, explicitly requires disclosure to the tax authorities of offshore indirect transfers of equity in PRC companies. The tax authorities may then examine the transferred offshore holding company in order to ascertain whether the structure has a reasonable commercial purpose – if not, the offshore gain could be held subject to Chinese tax.
Continue Reading Offshore Equity Transfers – Next Target for PRC Tax Anti-avoidance Attack