Hotel industry legal heavyweight Tony Ryan is joining Jones Lang LaSalle.
In a newly created role, Ryan is heading to Singapore to become the global head of Mergers and Acquisitions for the firm’s Hotels and Hospitality Group.
Speaking to HM, Tony Ryan said that it will be ‘business as usual’ at Ryan Lawyers. The business will be headed up by Robert Williams and both the Sydney and the Singapore offices will continue to operate. Ryan he has sold out of the firm and expects that a name change is imminent.
Starting in December 2015, Ryan will provide hospitality industry clients with strategic advice on growing their local and international businesses through corporate and portfolio acquisitions, capital sourcing, joint ventures, business restructuring and cross border transactions.
Of the new role, Ryan said that he will be providing advisory services on a range of complex transactions.
“Anything that’s a little bit out of the ordinary will be my purview,” he said.
Scott Hetherington, CEO Asia, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Hotels and Hospitality Group said, “With Tony joining, we now have an even stronger team to service our clients in Asia Pacific and beyond. We are confident that our existing deep knowledge base, combined with Tony’s stellar expertise and network, will give us the most compelling hotels M&A offering in the market.
“We are delighted to be bringing Tony into the business. He will be a huge asset to JLL as he has a skill set that is complementary to our current team in Asia Pacific. With him on board, we expect to grow the M&A part of our business to meet the demands of our current clients and of the market in general,” he said.
Over the years, Ryan has been involved in a number of significant hotel deals in the region, handling transactions for companies such as IHG, Hyatt, CDL Hospitality REIT and Host Hotels and Resorts, the largest lodging Real Estate Investment Trust in the USA.
From 2004 to 2015, Ryan ran his own hospitality-focused legal firm in Sydney and Singapore, Ryan Lawyers. Prior to that, he was a partner at Blake Dawson (now known as Ashurst) where he established Australia’s first integrated tourism and hospitality legal practice.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney and was admitted as a lawyer in New South Wales in 1984. He graduated from the Advanced Management Program at the Hotel School, Cornell University, New York, USA in 1999.