Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Freshfields) achieved a double success at Wednesday's award ceremony, receiving two awards for M&A Team of the Year and M&A Deal of the Year at the annual International Financial Law Review Middle East Awards 2010. This marks the third time that the Freshfields Middle East M&A team have won both the Team of the Year and Deal of the Year awards, having previously triumphed in 2006 and 2007.
The M&A Deal of the Year was for advising Deutsche Securities Saudi Arabia and Citigroup Global Markets Limited as financial advisers to Kingdom Holding Company, owned by Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal in relation to its cash offer to buy all outstanding shares in Kingdom Hotel Investments, valuing the company at $843m.
In the past year, the Freshfields M&A team has also worked on the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) acquisition of The Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) retail banking business in the UAE, the ABN AMRO demerger from RBS and merger with Fortis, and the Marsh acquisition of HSBC's insurance businesses in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Accepting the awards on behalf of the firm, Bertrand Pellet, Head of Corporate, MENA congratulated the Freshfields team and said:
"These awards recognise that Freshfields is the firm of choice for large and strategically important commercial transactions in the Middle East. Our expertise within M&A, Project Finance and Banking, allows us to advise clients on all legal aspects of these complex and fast-moving international transactions.
"I congratulate the team at Freshfields and look forward to further success in the coming year."
The awards ceremony was held on the evening of Wednesday 27th October at the Burj Al Arab, Dubai.
Earlier this year, the Freshfields Middle East M&A team advised ADCB, the third largest bank in the UAE, on their agreement to acquire RBS's retail banking business in the UAE; the first acquisition of an international bank's retail banking franchise in the UAE by a local bank.
They also advised on the demerger of ABN AMRO from RBS, and the merger with Fortis Bank. The demerger marked the first time a regulated financial services business was transferred from the onshore federal regime to the offshore DIFC regime as part of a demerger, and the merger of ABN AMRO and Fortis Bank, which each had branch offices in the DIFC, was the first merger of two regulated financial services entities in the DIFC.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is an integrated international law firm and operates from 27 offices in 15 countries, including all the main financial centres of the world. Our 2,500 plus lawyers provide unrivalled technical and commercial advice to the world's leading national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments, helping them deal with their most challenging and complex business issues and transactions.
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Freshfields in MENA
Freshfields has offices in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia (through their association with The Law Firm of Salah Al-Hejailan) and in the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi and Dubai). The firm has approximately 40 lawyers working in the Middle East and has prominent finance, corporate, dispute resolution and real estate practices.
Media representatives can register to receive electronic copies of press releases as they are added to our website by visiting http://www.freshfields.com/news
For more information, contact:
Nicky Duncan, Business Development Manager - MENA
Tel: +971 4 509 9 172
E-mail: nicky.duncan@freshfields.com
© Press Release 2010
