Kern Wong

Partner

Kern’s areas of practice include equity and debt capital markets and general corporate and compliance advisory work for Singapore-listed companies.

He has advised issuers and underwriters on capital markets transactions including initial public offerings of companies, SPACs and business trusts, secondary listings by introduction, rights issues, placements, establishments of debt issuance programmes, offerings of straight debt, retail bonds and perpetual securities, liability management exercises and listings of debt securities on the Singapore Exchange. He also advises issuers on post-listing regulatory and compliance matters.

The Legal 500 Asia Pacific cites Kern as a key lawyer in the Firm’s capital markets practice and notes clients’ feedback that he is “very technically sound”, “able to provide commercially balanced solutions” and is “always responsive and reliable”. For his work in the area of capital markets in Singapore, Kern has been recognised as a “Rising Star Partner” by IFLR1000 Asia-Pacific 2024.

Kern joined Allen & Gledhill in 2014 as a trainee and was called to the Singapore Bar in 2016. He was seconded to a major bank in 2018.

Work Highlights

• Advised Credit Suisse (Singapore) Limited and Goldman Sachs (Singapore) Pte., the issue managers on the secondary listing by way of introduction of Class A ordinary shares of NIO Inc. on the Singapore Exchange. The company is the first electric vehicle manufacturer to be listed on the Singapore Exchange, the first three-way exchange listing across the U.S., Hong Kong and Singapore, the largest pure electric vehicle player (by market capitalisation) listed on Stock Exchange of Hong Kong and the Singapore Exchange, and the largest listing (by market capitalisation) by way of introduction on the Singapore Exchange.
• Advised J.P. Morgan (S.E.A.) Limited and UBS AG Singapore Branch, the issue managers on the secondary listing by way of introduction of Emperador Inc. on the Singapore Exchange. The company is the largest company (by market capitalisation) to be dual listed across the exchanges of the Philippines and Singapore, and the first Philippines company listed on the First Board of the Philippine Stock Exchange to be secondary listed on the Singapore Exchange.
• Advised Citigroup Global Markets Singapore Pte. Ltd. and UBS AG Singapore Branch as joint issue managers, and the several other underwriters, on the IPO of Pegasus Asia, the first special purpose acquisition company backed by international sponsors to list on the Singapore Exchange. The IPO and concurrent sponsors’ subscription raised approximately S$170 million at listing.
• Advised Keppel Infrastructure Trust on its equity fund raising (comprising a placement and a preferential offering) in April 2019 which raised gross proceeds of approximately S$500.8 million.
• Advised Sembcorp Industries Ltd on the establishment of its S$3 billion Multicurrency Debt Issuance Programme in April 2020, and its inaugural offering of S$400 million green bonds under the Programme in June 2021, which is the first Certified green bond issued under the Climate Bonds Standard by a Singapore-based energy company.
• Advised Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited on the inaugural offering of S$500 million guaranteed notes under its S$5 billion Guaranteed Medium Term Note Programme in October 2018, which is the first offering of retail bonds in Singapore undertaken pursuant to the exempt bond framework, and its second offering of S$500 million guaranteed notes in November 2021.