Yuval Tal is head of the Hong Kong office and a Partner in the Corporate Department. He is a general corporate and securities lawyer with diverse experience in mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, cross-boarder transactions, and corporate and real estate finance.
Yuval's practice includes representing clients on financing, mergers and acquisitions (public and private, debt and equity), reorganizations and structured finance. He represents clients from their formation through their sale or public offering. He also advises his clients on day-to-day operational matters, including internal structuring, commercial transactions, employment, consulting arrangements and equity incentive programs. Yuval represents financial institutions as well as public and private companies. He has represented clients in diverse industries ranging from hotels to flight training to medical devices, from telecommunications to weight reduction to apparel.
In connection with his extensive experience representing private equity and venture capital funds, Yuval has represented U.S., European and Israeli-based funds, such as JPMorgan, Bessemer Venture Partners, Starwood Capital, Colony Capital, DLJ, Thor Urban Retail Fund, Big Flower, Star Ventures, Formula Ventures and Giza Venture Capital in structuring, restructuring, managing and disposing of investments in Asia (including Israel), Europe and the United States.
Yuval also is a member of the Lodging & Gaming Group and has worked on transactions involving hotel development and construction, licensing and franchising, management, acquisition and sale, restructuring and public offerings of hotel and casino companies. Yuval's hospitality work has included transactions from Korea to the United States. He has worked on projects involving Accor, Caesar’s/Harrah’s, Colony Capital, Garret Group, Hilton, Hyatt, Inter-Continental, Raffles, Starwood Capital, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Swissotel, Wyndham and many others. Yuval has worked on single and multi-property transactions and regularly represents both owners and managers. Recent and current projects include Accor's $1.3 billion sale of Red Roof Inn; the $625 million sale-and-management-back transaction for eight U.S. Sofitels between Accor and a venture of Gem Realty Capital and Whitehall; the sale-and-management-back transaction of the Crowne Plaza Times Square; a $300 million plus development of a mixed-use property, including an ultra luxury hotel in New York City; the development of a major mixed-use property in Israel; and representing Mori Building of Japan in its hotel investments. Yuval is a regular speaker on issues related to hotel management agreements in various hospitality related conferences such as the Hotel Investment Conference Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong.
Yuval’s practice also includes licensing and franchising transactions and he has done so for high-tech and bio-tech companies, as well as for clients in other industries.
Prior to rejoining Proskauer in 1999, Yuval practiced law in Israel, representing Israeli clients in transactions in Europe and the United States and European and U.S.-based clients in transactions in Israel. He handled transactions for major publicly traded Israeli companies such as Clal (Israel) Ltd., Card Guard AG, Kitan Consolidated Ltd., Orckit Communications Ltd., ECI Telecom Ltd., Scitex Corporation Ltd. and Tecnomatix Technologies Ltd. Since joining Proskauer, Yuval has continued to represent Israeli clients on a wide range of corporate and securities matters, such as the Swiss public offerings of Card Guard, as well as its acquisitions in the United States; the public offering on NASDAQ of Ituran Location and Control Ltd. which was completed in September 2005; the public offering of BioCancell Therapeutics Inc. on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange in 2006; and the public offering of Advanced Technology Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, on the AMEX.
Yuval lives in Hong Kong with his wife and three sons.