William Swan

Partner, Broadfield Asia

Partner
Broadfield Asia

  • Co-leads the Special Situations & Distressed Financing Group, which operates as part of the Restructuring & Insolvency Practice.
  • With over 17 years of experience, William is known for his expertise in advising buy-side institutions and distressed investors on complex, cross-border, stressed and distressed transactions, including both formal and out-of-court restructurings.
  • His areas of focus include advising on event-driven opportunities across a variety of asset classes and jurisdictions, opportunistic private credit, special situations investing, and complex trading of financial instruments.

About

William Swan’s practice is centred around special situations and distressed/opportunistic credit, financial restructuring and advising on distressed investments, and on trading in distressed debt and other financial instruments. William brings a strong creditor/buy-side focus to Broadfield (including deep experience advising ad hoc committees of creditors in respect of both private and public debt instruments on complex, cross-border transactions). William’s practice is strongly cross-border and spans a number of industries and sectors – from real estate to oil and gas.

William has acted as in-house counsel for two investment managers, in each case as a member of those firms’ distressed investment teams. William has a commercial and operational familiarity with buy-side investors’ investment and trading strategies and processes. In these roles, William advised on financial restructurings and distressed, special situations and event-driven opportunities (including direct lending transactions) and structured, negotiated and drafted documentation for a range of complex, stressed and distressed transactions and trades spanning multiple asset classes and jurisdictions. Additionally, William has worked as a member of the senior analyst team on the par and distressed trading desk of a US-headquartered global bank.

William worked for two years in the Tokyo office of a major US law firm primarily assisting US and European buy-side clients with their investments and finance matters in Japan, including restructuring, special situations, and bankruptcy-related transactions. He holds a BA/MA from Cambridge University, a GDL from Nottingham Law School and an LPC qualification from the Oxford Institute of Legal Practice. He is fluent in Japanese and English.