Helen Zhou

Helen is a structured debt lawyer, based in Singapore with cross-border experience across a broad range of structured finance transactions, warehouse facilities, securitisations, receivables financing, and loan portfolio acquisitions. Helen has acted for originators, corporates, lead managers, bank lenders and other credit providers on a range of public and private transactions. 

Prior to joining the Singapore team, Helen was based in London for over a decade and worked on a number of high profile securitisation restructurings in Europe. 

Work highlights

Among the many matters Helen has worked on, she has advised:

• Cerberus on the first ever partial securitisation call and reissuance (relating to the £4bn TPMF 2019-Granite4 UK RMBS).
• A financial sponsor on the first UK equity release mortgage (ERM) securitisation since the financial crisis.
• A consortium of the six largest UK financial institutions (Barclays Bank, HSBC Bank, Lloyds Bank, Nationwide Building Society, The Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander) in providing a staple financing package in connection with the sale in March 2017 by UK Asset Resolution of some £11.8bn of mortgage loans originated by Bradford & Bingley. The financing package consisted of an investment by the consortium in two public securitisation transactions to fund the purchase of the loans by the purchasers, Blackstone and Prudential. This was one of the largest government asset sales in Europe.
• The purchaser on its acquisition of the £13bn UK residential mortgage loan book of Northern Rock Asset Management, the largest financial asset sale by a European government.
• The sponsor on a £6bn asset-backed securitisation of UK residential mortgage loans, the largest single issuance securitisation since the financial crisis.
• The acquiror on its acquisition of Capital Home Loans, a residential mortgage loan business, together with a £2bn portfolio of mortgage loans.

Helen studied law at Queens’ College, University of Cambridge.