Benran is a partner of Haiwen & Partners. He has extensive experience in advising international and Chinese private equity funds, sovereign funds, tech companies, other financial and strategic investors in growth capital and co-investment transactions, exits as well as complex cross-border mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. 

Benran joined Haiwen & Partners in February 2024 as partner. Before joining Haiwen, Benran was a partner of Shanghai Zhaosheng Law Firm (which is in joint operation with Linklaters in China), heading the firm’s Beijing corporate practice. Prior to this, Benran had worked in Linklaters from 2012 to 2016 and in Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP from 2017 to 2018, respectively.

Benran’s recent representative M&A experience includes acting for: TikTok on the structuring of its strategic development of e-commerce business in Indonesia, in particular on the related structural and regulatory issues relating to its acquisition of Tokopedia for more than one billion US dollars; a Chinese state-owned enterprise on its proposed transaction to acquire a majority stake in a semiconductor industry enterprise for more than one billion RMB; Investindustrial on its acquisition of a PRC chemical intermediate company and its subscription of convertible bonds in a related transaction; IDG Capital on several cross-border M&A transactions; Hillhouse Capital on a few cross-border M&A transactions; Zhejiang Jingsheng Mechanical & Electrical Co., Ltd. (a PRC listed company) on the proposed set-up of a joint venture with Applied Materials in the PRC to acquire the solar businesses of Applied Materials; PDT Technologies Company Limited (IDG Energy) on its acquisition of China solar business from RENA Technologies GmbH; LRQA on its bolt-on acquisition of ELEVATE, an industry leader in ESG and supply chain services; Tencent on its acquisition of majority stake in a New Zealand based gaming company.

In the area of equity financing transactions, Benran serves clients including several Chinese sovereign funds, several Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian sovereign funds, CITIC Securities, ByteDance, Didi Chuxing, Sofina, Brookfield, Sequoia China and Tencent.

In addition, Benran has participated in capital market transactions including deSPAC, privatization, listing by way of merger, public acquisition and bonds issuance.

Benran was recognised as a Rising Star in the TMT practice in China by The Legal 500 in 2023 and 2024. Benran was also ranked by Chambers in 2024 for Corporate/M&A.

Mr. Huang received his LL.B. degree from China University of Political Science and Law in 2011, and his LL.M. degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2012. 

Mr. Huang’s native language is Mandarin, and he speaks English fluently.