Finance focus: ESG, taxation, and financial due diligence in Hong Kong and mainland China.

Join us for an insightful and engaging workshop to explore and enhance your understanding of the latest developments on mainland China and Hong Kong taxation, FSIE regime, family office tax regime, ESG development, financial due diligence and the latest practices of each sector.

CEOs, CFOs, business development executives, family offices and professionals with responsibility dealing with tax, M&A and ESG issues are welcome.

Workshop agenda: Day 1

1. China tax controversy: Cases, lessons and preventions

• Common types of tax dispute and controversy
• Usual areas in disagreements
• Differences among tax assessment, tax audit and special tax adjustment
• Lessons from tax cases
• Solutions and preventions
• Speaker: Caesar Wong, Managing Director, China Advisory Services

2. ESG updates

• HKEx Consultation Paper on Enhancement of climate-related disclosures
• Release of the ISSB
• What why and how to identify climate risks
• Updates on HKEx published climate-related disclosures
• Speakers:
  • Brenda Tung, Director, Risk Advisory Services
  • Kenny Mak, Senior Manager, Head of ESG team, Risk Advisory Services
  • Cheryl Lau, Senior Consultant, Risk Advisory Services

3. Overview of financial due diligence

• M&A lifecycle overview
• Working capital mechanisms
• Assessment on quality of earnings and its M&A implication
• Speaker: Candy Kwok, Director, Transaction Advisory Services

Event details

Speakers

Caesar Wong, Managing Director, China Advisory Services

Focusing on China and cross-border tax and business projects, Caesar’s areas of expertise include tax risk mitigation, tax controversy solutions, M&A tax advisory, practical transfer pricing, cross-border arrangement optimisation, government services and training services for executives, officials and tax practitioners.  He also serves as a China tax expert witness for litigation cases at the High Court of Hong Kong.

Caesar has over 30 years of professional tax and business advisory experience, and worked for Andersen, PwC, EY, Deloitte and RSM before.  He was seconded to Shanghai in 1994, and worked at offices in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macao, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Caesar is the pioneer for Greater Bay Area (“GBA”) and Free Trade Zone advisory, submits comments on tax bills and policies, and cooperated with Shenzhen Tax Service of State Taxation Administration (“STA”) to draft the pioneer rules and implementation guidelines for qualified tax advisers from Hong Kong and Macao to practice in the mainland.

Caesar is a CPA in Hong Kong, Chartered Tax Adviser (“CTA”) and qualified tax practitioner registered in China.  His professional appointments include Vice President cum Chairman of China Taxation Committee of The Taxation Institute of Hong Kong, Member of Global Forum for Taxation and GBA Advisory Board of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, and Member of Taxation Academic Research Committee of each of The Chinese Tax Institute and China International Taxation Research Institute affiliated by STA.

Brenda Tung, Director, Risk Advisory Services

• Master Degree in Corporate Governance and Bachelor’s (Hons) Degree in Professional Accountancy
• Member of HKICPA, Associate of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators and the Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries
• Over 20 years of experience, including 5 years of professional experience in Big 4 accounting firm and local medium-sized audit firm, and 8 years of internal audit experience in a listed company in mobile telecommunication industry

Previous experience includes:

• Enterprise risk assessment to identify and prioritise key business risk
• Internal control reviews covering all major business processes
• US SOX-compliance implementation projects
• Internal audits for local and global clients

Kenny Mak, Senior Manager, Head of ESG team, Risk Advisory Services

• Master of Environmental Science and Technology with Environmental Health and Food Safety with Surveillance (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)
• Bachelor of Environmental Science (University of Sydney, Australia)
• European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies (EFFAS) Certified Environmental, Social and Governance Analyst（CESGA ®）

Kenny has over 13 years of experience of environmental and social assessment including over 10 years of sustainability and environmental management and in ESG reporting advisory experience in international consulting firms in Hong Kong.

Kenny has been involved in different engagements including environmental and social reviews, environmental audit and monitoring, corporate sustainability (environmental and social) program and environmental and social impact assessment for the clients.

He has experience in internal environmental and social management program of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) company in mainland China. He has served government authorities, public institutions, listed clients and multinational clients in various industries, including Hong Kong, Macau and Brunei government authorities, transportation, property developers, manufacturing and textile institution and international brands, with the operations in Hong Kong, China and other Asia Pacific countries.

Cheryl Lau, Senior Consultant, Risk Advisory Services

• Bachelor of Science (London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom)
• CFA Institute Certificate in ESG Investing
• Hong Kong Scholar (official title awarded by the HKSAR Government)

Cheryl has experience in ESG reporting and report compliance review according to different standards and requirements including the “Environmental, Social and Governance Reporting Guide” of the HKEx, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), “Guide to Internal Review of Sustainability Report” of SGX, etc.

Cheryl has been involved in other ESG advisory engagements including environmental internal control review, environmental and social risk assessment and assisting clients in setting targets for alignment with the Paris Agreement.

She has served government authorities, public institutions, listed clients and multinational clients in various industries, including education, tourism, e-commerce, property developers, manufacturing and international brands, with the operations in Hong Kong, mainland China, Japan and other Asia Pacific countries.

Candy Kwok, Director, Transaction Advisory Services

• Member, Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA)
• Member, The Society of Chinese Accountants and Auditors (SCAA)

Candy has extensive experience in providing transaction support services and financial advisory services to listed and private companies in various industries. She is also specialised in merger and acquisition for various sectors, including financial due diligence review, post due diligence procedures by reviewing and comment on the pro forma completion accounts, comment on the purchase consideration adjustments and indemnity/provisional clause.