ILF's market reputation is as a specialist firm for banking and capital markets. It gets regular referrals from global firms and is able to handle top end deals in each of the practice areas....
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ILF's market reputation is as a specialist firm for banking and capital markets. It gets regular referrals from global firms and is able to handle top end deals in each of the practice areas. The firm's M&A team is also very strong as evidenced by the deals it advised on.
One example of this saw the firm work with White & Case to advise the bookrunners, which included Citigroup Global Markets, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, on the first ever Eurobond issuance for the state owned National Bank of Egypt (NBE). Due to the public nature of the bank, the $600 million bond was similar to a sovereign bond.
Head of department Ashraf Elibrachy and Soheir Elbanna led on all of the firm's banking and debt capital markets transactions including the above deal. Other work saw the firm advise the Arab Investment Company on a $25 million financing from the Arab African International Bank for expansion works on the Hilton Hotel, and the Arab International Bank on a series of financing agreements, one part of which involved a $30 million loan. One of its most regular clients in the finance arena is Pireaus Bank.
Tarek Gadallah, Elibrachy and Elbanna handled the firm's largest M&A transactions. In one deal Gadallah acted for Naeem Holding and businessman Hesham Tawfik on the $40 million sale of a 90% stake in Arabeya Online to Bank Audi in an auction run by EFG Hermes and involving competitive bids from international and regional financial institutions.
In mid-2011 the firm was advising Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) on a sale and carve out of MobiNil, ECMS, and other assets to Vimplecom and Weather. It has also advised a number of other clients in M&A including Holcim, Abraaj Capital, Shuaa Capital, Marcopolo, Société Générale and GMR Energy.
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