Professional profile
About Zhang
Senior Partner / Head of Securities & Capital Markets | Capital markets, A-share IPO, M&A, private funds
Zhang Chi is a senior partner in Guansheng Law Offices’ Dongguan office and heads the office’s securities and capital-markets committee. His official profile focuses on finance and securities work, including A-share IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, private funds, due diligence, transaction structuring and contract negotiation. His representative projects include legal work on STAR Market IPOs for Trina Solar and Jinpan Technology, giving him direct experience with technology and manufacturing issuers.
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Dongguan has a large population of privately owned manufacturing companies that may eventually seek an A-share listing. These businesses often grow through a combination of founder relationships, major overseas customers, related-party suppliers, leased or historically acquired industrial property and flexible group structures. Those features can be commercially successful while creating issues that need remediation before an IPO.
Zhang’s capital-markets practice is especially relevant to customer concentration. A manufacturer may depend on one global brand or a small number of export customers for a large percentage of revenue. Concentration is not automatically disqualifying, but the issuer needs to explain the commercial basis, stability, pricing power and whether the relationship creates dependence that undermines business sustainability.
Related-party sales and procurement are another recurring issue. A founder-controlled trading company, family-owned supplier or affiliated logistics provider may have been used for legitimate historical reasons. Before filing, the issuer must identify those relationships, test pricing and decide whether they should be terminated, normalized or transparently disclosed.
Factory compliance is equally important. An issuer may have excellent financial performance but weak records concerning land use, construction approvals, fire acceptance, environmental procedures or leased industrial buildings. These issues can become material because the prospectus and intermediary verification process require a reliable picture of the assets on which production depends.
Zhang’s M&A and due-diligence background is valuable because IPO remediation can involve transactions. The issuer may need to acquire a related-party asset, dispose of a non-core business, consolidate subsidiaries or restructure ownership before filing. Those steps should be completed early enough to create a stable historical record rather than rushed immediately before submission.
His private-fund practice also provides an investor perspective. Pre-IPO investors often have redemption rights, vetoes, anti-dilution provisions or special information rights that need to be cleaned up before listing. The company should identify those rights well before filing and negotiate termination or conversion in a way that does not create new disputes.
Zhang’s experience on STAR Market IPOs is relevant to technology-intensive manufacturers because the listing story must connect legal ownership, R&D, customers and production assets. A company cannot describe itself as an independent advanced manufacturer if its core technology belongs to an affiliate or its factory depends on undocumented land rights.
His government and public-service experience also adds value where industrial property, local incentive agreements or public approvals intersect with the listing process. Remediation may require engagement with local authorities, and counsel should distinguish what can be cured through documentation from what requires substantive legal action.
Zhang should therefore be positioned as a Dongguan capital-markets and pre-IPO manufacturing lawyer. His strongest user-facing matters include A-share IPO readiness, customer concentration, related-party normalization, factory and land compliance, pre-IPO restructuring, M&A and private-fund investor rights.
For Dongguan manufacturers, IPO preparation often begins with a legal clean-up project years before filing. Industrial land may have been acquired through historic village or collective arrangements, buildings may have been expanded before all approvals were completed, and related companies may share employees or equipment. A capital-markets lawyer needs to distinguish matters that can be regularized from those that change the issuer’s listing structure.
Zhang’s M&A practice is relevant because remediation may require real transactions rather than legal opinions. A related-party warehouse might need to be acquired, a non-core subsidiary sold, an affiliate’s customer contracts transferred or a holding structure simplified. Those steps should be sequenced with tax, accounting and securities consequences.
His experience with private funds also helps address the pre-IPO cap table. Institutional investors may hold special rights negotiated during earlier financing rounds. An issuer should identify which rights terminate on filing, which need shareholder consent to remove and whether any side letters create inconsistent treatment among investors.
The strongest use of Zhang’s profile is therefore not a last-minute prospectus review but a pre-IPO readiness program that aligns ownership, customers, factory assets, governance and investor rights before the formal filing timetable begins.
His government and public-service work can also help where factory compliance depends on local administrative remediation. IPO preparation may require confirmation of historic land, construction or permitting issues from competent authorities. The company should pursue that work early enough that the listing timetable is not dependent on last-minute government documentation.
That early remediation approach can also reduce disclosure risk because the company enters the filing process with completed evidence rather than unresolved explanations.
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