Lovells has moved to boost its Chinese corporate practice with the hire of White & Case partner Fred Chang. Chang will join Lovells’ Beijing office as a partner in the coming weeks.

Chang, who focuses on structured credit work for investment banks, was previously based at the Beijing office of White & Case, having only joined the US firm in 2006 from Chinese practice King & Wood.

He has also previously worked in-house with Goldman Sachs and was general counsel at Deutsche Bank Asia for five years.

The hire comes as part of a drive by Lovells to develop its relationships with leading investment banks in the region – a key aspect of the firm’s growth plans in Asia, according to managing partner David Harris.

Chang said the chance to work with Lovells’ specialists in capital markets, finance and private equity work was a factor in his decision to move to the City giant. Notably, the office advised on the $1.9bn (£970m) initial public offering of Chinese property developer Country Garden on the Hong Kong stock exchange last year.

Meanwhile, City-based Lovells acquisition finance partner Gary Hamp is to relocate to Hong Kong as the firm attempts to focus on high-end leveraged and acquisition finance work for private equity firms and investments banks.