Omar Handoush

Omar is a Partner and Head of Banking & Finance in Al Tamimi & Company’s Kuwait office.  Prior to joining Al Tamimi & Company, Omar was an Associate at Greenberg Traurig, LLP, where he focused his practice on advising private equity firms and privately held companies on a broad range of corporate transactions, including, without limitation, corporate formation, mergers and acquisitions, early stage venture financing, fund formation and corporate governance.

Omar’s experience includes representing both lenders and companies in a variety of conventional and Islamic finance transactions.  Omar has extensive experience in structuring, negotiating and advising clients on a wide variety of finance and acquisition transactions. His clients include regional, European and US banks, government entities and corporate borrowers.  Most recently, Omar has served as counsel on both the financier and borrower side of a number of Shari’a complaint transactions.

• Advised Kuwait Integrated Petroleum Industries Company in securiting USD 2.3 Billion in finance from local and foreign banks to fund its liquefied natural gas project.
• Acted on behalf of Standard Chartered Bank, which was the lead bank in the acquisition financing in the amount of US$ 2.4 Billion to Alabbar Enterprises, a UAE company, in its acquisition of Kuwait Food Company (Americana) KCSP, a major Kuwait listed company.
• Advised National Bank of Kuwait and Kuwait Finance House in a syndicated financing with respect to the construction of the New Kuwait International Airport.
• Advised Kuwait National Petroleum Company on world’s largest ECA financing for corporate purposes.
• Advised Warba Bank in its Sharia-compliant structured finance acquisition of an auto finance portfolio.

• Banking
• Capital markets: Debt
• Islamic finance
• Project finance
• Structured finance/securitisation

• Banking
• Construction and materials
• Financial services
• Government and public policy
• Oil and gas

• 2009 – State Bar of California

• 2014 – American Bar Association

• Juris Doctror, University of California, Hastings Colledge of the Law (2009)
• BS in Business Administration, University of California Berkeley (1999)