Ziqian Tao

ZIQIAN TAO’s practice focuses on advising startups, investors, sponsors, and private and public companies in life sciences and technology industries. He advises clients on general corporate matters, venture financing, public and private M&A, joint ventures, minority investment and other strategic transactions.

Ziqian is a native Mandarin speaker and fluent in English.

Representative experience includes representing:

Private M&A and Joint Venture

• Caidya, a leading global contract research organization (CRO), in its strategic combination with Simbec-Orion, a UK-headquartered CRO specializing in clinical pharmacology, oncology, and rare disease clinical research.
• Sonoco on its US$3.9 billion acquisition of Eviosys.
• Peerless Aerospace on its US$300 million sale to Diploma plc.
• WHP Global in its formation of joint venture with Express.
• A market-leading hedge fund on its sale of certain minority stake in its Chinese investment vehicle.
• A private equity firm on multiple sell-side transactions, including its sale of portfolio companies in the consumer products, electronics manufacturing services and industrial machinery manufacturing industries.
• A multinational automotive company on its sale of certain software assets. 
• A multinational tobacco company on its divestiture of certain assets.
• Two multinational companies in the tourism industry on their purchase and sale of interests in joint ventures.
• A multinational oil and gas company on its sale of interests in a joint venture.
• A multinational company in the automative industry on the restructuring of a joint venture.

Public M&A

• Goldman Sachs, as financial advisor to Emerald Holdings in connection with its sale to Apollo. 
• Merck on its US$10 billion acquisition of Verona Pharma.
• PropertyGuru on its US$1.1 billion sale to EQT.
• Renesas on its terminated acquisition of Sequans Communications.
• Qualtrics on its US$12.5 billion sale to Silver Lake and CPP Investments.
• Ritchie Bros. on its US$7.3 billion acquisition of IAA.
• iRobot on its terminated sale to Amazon. 
• Edgio on its US$300 million acquisition of Yahoo’s Edgecast.
• Biocon Biologics on its US$3.3 billion acquisition of Viatris’ Biosimilars Assets.

Minority Investments and Venture Financing

• OSN Group on its investment in Anghami Inc.
• Vida Ventures in its investment in Affini-T Therapeutics’ US$175 million financing.
• Early stage companies and venture funds on multiple venture financing transactions.

*Some of the above matters were handled prior to joining Sidley.