Akiko Kimura is an of counsel principally handling international finance matters, mergers and acquisitions, and general corporate affairs. She has been involved in a wide range of public offerings and private placements of shares, bonds and other securities by Japanese companies overseas, and by supranational organizations, foreign governments and foreign private entities in Japan. She has also acted as legal advisor in connection with the privatization of foreign and Japanese governmental institutions, as well as initial public offerings by foreign and Japanese companies. She has been involved in the demutualization of a Japanese life insurance company and in the acquisition by a Japanese company of a foreign company through exchange of shares, each of which was the first of transaction of its kind in Japan. She also handles a wide variety of corporate transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures and licensing arrangements.