Yulchon's M&A practice builds track record with 'one-stop' collaboration model

The M&A division of law firm Yulchon's corporate advisory practice is drawing attention for delivering strong results in an increasingly complex capital markets environment. With a team of roughly 100 specialists, the division has built a track record spanning domestic and cross-border transactions, strategic and financial investments, and private equity fund deals.

Industry observers point to Yulchon's organic "one-stop collaboration system" as a key differentiator — a structure in which specialists from multiple disciplines work together as a single team on M&A mandates.

Another competitive strength is the division's proactive approach to heading off post-closing disputes and governance risk. From the earliest stages of a deal, the team identifies potential sources of conflict and conducts detailed reviews of transaction structures, share purchase agreements, shareholder agreements and internal regulations to remove legal obstacles before they arise. The division also holds multiple foreign legal qualifications, earning a reputation for managing procedural risk in cross-border transactions.

Those capabilities have been demonstrated in some of the capital market's largest recent deals. The most prominent example is the acquisition of Ecovit by the IMM Investment consortium — a transaction valued at approximately 2.6 trillion won ($1.71 billion) and widely regarded as one of the market's landmark deals. Yulchon led the drafting and negotiation of the English-language share purchase agreement, working through a range of legal issues against Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, which represented the seller, and Kim & Chang, which represented TY Holdings, to bring the deal to a close.

The firm also advised on the formation of an online platform joint venture between Shinsegae Group and Alibaba International. Beyond securing conditional approval from the Korea Fair Trade Commission in its merger review, the team designed a business cooperation framework between Gmarket and AliExpress Korea following the deal's closing.

Yulchon's M&A division fields a tightly structured lineup across generations. Managing partners Shin Young-soo (26th bar class) and Park Jae-hyun (30th class) oversee the corporate law and financial group. They are joined at the senior level by attorney Eun Seong-wook (26th class), who leads on management rights disputes, corporate succession advisory and the defense industry, and Shin Hyun-hwa (32nd class), a financial M&A specialist. At the working level, attorney Hwang Gyu-sang (33rd class) heads the M&A and mobility teams alongside Lee Su-yeon (34th class), co-chair of Yulchon's Career Development Committee, with Song Ho-seong (40th class) and Hwang Byeong-hun (first bar exam class) providing mid-level support. Foreign attorney Lee Tae-hyeok handles global transactions.