Led by Harvard educated Kimathi Kuenyehia, the firm has continued to expand since its establishment three years ago. It was set up as a boutique M&A practice but has since expanded into financing, taking advantage of openings in the market created by fading older names....
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Led by Harvard educated Kimathi Kuenyehia, the firm has continued to expand since its establishment three years ago. It was set up as a boutique M&A practice but has since expanded into financing, taking advantage of openings in the market created by fading older names.
"Very aggressive, really good," says one competitor of the firm. On the banking side, Kuenyehia and Juliet Manteaw-Kutin won a couple of mandates from CAL Bank to advise on a syndicated loan agreement to the government of Ghana and on a fixed income placement for sovereign-backed structure notes.
On the M&A side, Kuenyehia and associate Kwaku Osei Asare closed a deal for Ascomah on its acquisition of shares in Newland Risk Management, possibly the first insurance brokerage acquisition in Ghana. The pair was also acting on an on-going cross-border deal for Avis Ghana and U-Save Car Rental to establish a joint venture between a Ghanaian rental company and a global car rental company and an acquisition of bulk oil interests from Vihama Energy by client Dram Oil & Trading.
At the time of writing in July 2011, Kuenyehia was also busy advising Octave Partners acquisition of two logistics companies: 7M Ghana and 7M Logistics.
The firm also won mandates from clients including Millicom Ghana, the second biggest leading telecom company in Ghana, National Oil Bank (a Houston based oil field services company), Carlyle, Newfin, oil services group Worley Parsons Atlantic and Halliburton, and received instructions from Cleary Gottlieb, Baker & McKenzie, Hunton & Williams and leading Nigerian firm Templars.
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