Louise Coffey is a dual-qualified lawyer (England and Wales/Hong Kong) with over 15 years of experience advising clients on a broad spectrum of debt finance matters, including bilateral loans, senior/mezzanine financing, asset-back financing, special situation loans and debt restructuring.
Louise previously practised at market-leading firms Hogan Lovells (in London) and Kirkland & Ellis (in Hong Kong). Most recently, she acted as in-house counsel to a prominent Asia-focused credit fund, providing private, secured debt finance to small to medium sized enterprises across Asia and Australia.
SINGAPORE
Rob Sandes joins FWD Escrow from Kirkland & Ellis, where he was a partner in the Restructuring team. Rob has worked on some of the highest profile restructuring matters in the Hong Kong and London markets in recent years.
Prior to his time in both the Hong Kong and London offices of Kirkland & Ellis, Rob trained at “Magic Circle” firm Clifford Chance in London. He is a dual-qualified lawyer (England and Wales/Hong Kong) with over 12 years of experience advising clients on complex cross-border debt restructuring and insolvency matters, including security enforcements and related debt finance work.
Hong Kong
Natasha Groves is a UK qualified solicitor with over 8 years of experience advising clients on a broad range of banking and finance transactions including asset finance, structured finance, acquisition finance and bilateral loans. Natasha joins FWD Escrow from Mourant, where she was a senior associate in the Banking & Finance team in Hong Kong, acting as BVI and Cayman Islands counsel to both lenders and borrowers.
HONG KONG
Simon Kwan joined FWD Escrow after 7 years working for Madison Pacific in Hong Kong, where he managed a team of 6 in the operations department. Simon has extensive experience working with both internal and external stakeholders to ensure that transactions are executed in a timely and accurate manner. Together with Jason Lau, he is also responsible for the continued monitoring and compliance with FWD Escrow’s ongoing obligations for the duration of each matter.
Prior to working in the trust and agency space, Simon worked for a number of years at one of the major prime brokers in London where he was a Senior Operations Analyst in the operations control team. Simon uses this wealth of experience in operations and investment administration to ensure that FWD Escrow’s internal processes, policies and controls adhere to the most rigorous standards of integrity, accuracy and security.
Simon speaks English and Cantonese.
Hong Kong
Jason Lau has over 18 years of experience in fund administration, investment compliance and trust operations. Prior to joining FWD Escrow, Jason worked for Citicorp and Royal Bank of Canada in both Hong Kong and Singapore. He spent 6 years in RBC’s Trust Services team, where he managed and monitored the operation of MPF/ORSO schemes.
Jason speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Hong Kong
Gary is a highly accomplished compliance specialist with extensive experience gained from time working for global financial institutions, a consultancy firm, and two cryptocurrency exchanges. Most recently, he spent two and a half years with BitMEX in Hong Kong and Singapore as the Head of Fraud, Subpoena and Law Enforcement.
His role at FWD Escrow is to ensure the group maintains the very highest standards of integrity, ethics and professional standards and complies at all times with the requirements of its regulators and applicable laws.
Gary speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
HONG KONG
Prior to joining FWD Escrow, Chong Sian spent 5 years with Lighthouse Canton, a Singapore-based wealth and asset management company, working in both the Risk/Compliance and Operations departments. Managing a team of 4 people, he was responsible for enhancing and streamlining operational and compliance policies, workflows, processes and risk controls to ensure consistency and efficiency across the group.
Chong Sian now brings that extensive experience to FWD Escrow. As Head of Compliance (SG), he ensures that FWD Escrow adheres to the highest standards of integrity and regulatory compliance in all relevant jurisdictions. His role encompasses client on-boarding, liaising with FWD Escrow’s regulators and ensuring that all members of the FWD Escrow team understand and adhere to regulatory and other risk management requirements.
Chong Sian speaks English and Mandarin.
SINGAPORE
Justin Chan is a Hong Kong qualified solicitor with over three years of post-qualification experience. Justin joins FWD Escrow from Alter Domus, where he acted as a legal counsel for the Debt Capital Markets team in Asia-Pacific, providing corporate trust and agency services to private credit lenders and corporate borrowers across the APAC region.
Justin previously practiced at Patrick Chu, Conti Wong Lawyers LLP, a prominent Hong Kong law firm, where he advised clients on corporate and commercial matters including private and public M&A, debt financing and regulatory compliance matters. Prior to this, Justin trained at Hastings & Co., a well-established Hong Kong law firm, where he primarily engaged in advising clients on Hong Kong IPO listing projects and corporate finance related matters.
Justin speaks English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
HONG KONGActing as facility agent, FWD Escrow performs an administrative role managing and streamlining the relationship between a borrower and its lender(s).
We act as the primary point of contact between parties and manage all communication between them.
Other services include:
A security agent or trustee is appointed to hold security interests for and on behalf of one or more beneficiaries.
This can be particularly beneficial if, for example, the composition of the beneficiary group is likely to change over time as it avoids the cost and difficulty of releasing and retaking security each time a new beneficiary is added or an existing beneficiary transfers its interest.
FWD Escrow is able to hold security interests in a wide number of different jurisdictions and is familiar with the practical issues involved in doing so.
As security agent/trustee, our duties include:
A bond/note trustee facilitates the relationship and information flow between a bond or note issuer and its investors.
FWD Escrow takes a highly commercial approach to managing this complex process, and efficiently manages requests for amendments, waivers and consents. In the event of a default, we take a proactive and cooperative role in protecting the interests of investors.
In distressed situations, an incumbent trustee may be reluctant to exercise discretion or act decisively to protect creditor interests.
Significant delays may also be caused if an incumbent trustee insists on full indemnification prior to acting on creditor instructions.
FWD Escrow understands the frustration this can cause, particularly when time is of the essence. The specific experience of our team makes us particularly well-suited to assist in such situations by replacing the incumbent trustee.
As an independent service provider, we remain conflict-free and can take decisions quickly and effectively without requiring approval from internal credit or compliance committees.
An escrow agent may be jointly appointed by parties to hold funds or other property (such as shares) in trust on their behalf while a transaction is finalised or a dispute is resolved.
We are regularly appointed to hold funds on behalf of clients pending, for example, completion of a sale and purchase transaction or arbitration proceedings. We do so on a straight-forward, fixed fee basis.
FWD Escrow can act as custodian in respect of a range of asset types including:
FWD Escrow has client bank accounts located in Hong Kong, Singapore and Jakarta and can hold funds in a number of different currencies.
Parties to a transaction may not always be incorporated or operate in the same jurisdiction. If a party agrees to transaction documents being governed by the laws of a country in which it does not have a physical presence (i.e. an address), it will typically be required to appoint an agent for service of process or “process agent” in that country.
The process agent acts as a local representative of the appointing party. Court documents in respect of the transaction may be served on the process agent, who will then deliver them to the appointing party in accordance with pre-agreed instructions.
This facilitates prompt delivery of legal documentation and avoids the complex process of serving legal documents overseas.
FWD Escrow can act as a process agent in Hong Kong or the UK.
An independent director is a member of the board of a company who does not have a material or pecuniary relationship with that company or its related entities, and is therefore free of any connections that may lead to a conflict of interest.
FWD Escrow can provide experienced individuals to act as neutral, responsible corporate officers on either an interim or long-term basis.
We are happy to discuss any transaction or matter where a neutral third party is required to perform any bespoke administrative, trust or ancillary role..
The name “FWD Escrow” was chosen to reflect the group’s strong East/West connections. FWD Escrow was the name of a famous tea clipper built in Scotland in 1863 expressly for the Chinese tea trade.
FWD Escrow participated in the annual "tea races" carrying the first tea crop of each season from China to London. She won the race in 1864.
“FWD Escrow”, derived from the Greek and Latin words for “silk”, was also the name of one of the easternmost countries of Asia known to Ancient Greek and Roman geographers. Now generally taken as referring to North China during the Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties, it was reached by traders via the overland Silk Road.
These connotations of trade and commerce are reflected in our logo, which references a specific shape of coin used throughout China and East Asia from the 4th century BC until the 20th century AD.
enquiry@fwdescrow.com