Ryan Au is counsel in the Tax practice. He focuses on advising clients on the structuring of cross-border investments and the formation of alternative investment vehicles, including hedge funds, private equity funds and real estate funds. In addition, he regularly advises on domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and restructurings.

He also is engaged in the firm’s FinTech Foundry program, which supports the FinTech-related activities of our clients and the wider global FinTech ecosystem including financial institutions, FinTech start-ups, accelerators and incubators, venture capital and private equity investors, and policymakers.

Ryan speaks regularly on international tax and cryptocurrency issues.

• Ecopetrol on its joint venture with Occidental Petroleum Corporation to develop 97,000 net acres in the Permian Basin in west Texas
• Qatar Investment Authority in its minority investment in GRAIL, Inc.
• A U.S.-based investment group in its establishment, alongside a Middle East-based partner, of a holding company which will identify business opportunities to acquire ownership interests in companies operating in the Middle East and Africa with a primary focus on agriculture, financial services, telecommunications and real estate sectors.
• Various sovereign wealth investors on their investments in REITs, hedge funds and private equity funds.
• GE Capital in its sale of GE Energy Financial Services' Project Finance Debt Business to Starwood Property Trust, Inc.
• General Electric Company in its sale of its distributed power business to Advent International Corporation.
• The Dow Chemical Company in the sale of its European extruded polystyrene foam (XPS) business to Ravago SA.
• Textron Inc. in the sale of its tools and test equipment business to Emerson Electric Co.
• Dell in the acquisition of StatSoft, Inc., a developer of analytics software products and solutions.
• Magna International Inc. in connection with its sale of substantially all of its interiors operations (which included 36 manufacturing operations and approximately 12,000 employees located in Europe, North America and Asia) to Grupo Antolin for approximately US$525 million.
• Starwood Waypoint Residential Trust, a public REIT, in connection with the internalization of its manager and its tax-free merger with Colony American Homes to form a public REIT with a gross asset value of approximately US$7.7 billion.

FinTech

• Represented a blockchain technology company, by providing tax advice to the company in relation to investments made in blockchain focused startups.
• Represented a cryptocurrency business regarding its international operations and impact of tax reform on its structure.
• Represented a cryptocurrency business regarding the U.S. tax impact of a token sale.

Speaking Engagements

• U.K. Department for International Trade’s, RegTech Roadshow: How to Set Up and Grow Your U.S. Office (2021)
• ABA Section of Taxation, Virtual May Tax Meeting, Cryptocurrency From A Financial Transactions Perspective (2020)
• ABA Section of Taxation, Midyear Tax Meeting, Boca Raton, FL: Non-U.S. Investors in Private Funds (2020)
• ABA Section of Taxation, Fall Tax Meeting, San Francisco, CA: U.S. Tax Aspects of the Foreign Business Activities of Trusts and Estates (2019)
• DC Bar, Financial Products Tax Lunch Series: Cracking the Code for Cryptocurrency (2019)