Regional news: Africa & Middle East

The administrators of NMC Healthcare in Abu Dhabi’s financial free zone have obtained interim protection in the UK, blocking creditors from attaching sale proceeds they plan to place in a London bank account.

09 April 2021

The Israeli trustee of a property investor once rumoured to be Israel’s largest private bankrupt has persuaded an English court to transfer him the rights to a UK company believed to be at the top of a structure intended to hide German assets – though no assets have been identified as yet, even by private investigators.

08 April 2021

Offering a rare glimpse into a cross-border insolvency in Africa, a Cayman court has appointed light-touch provisional liquidators over an oil and gas company finding its intention to restructure was there, despite its “precarious” negotiations being at an early stage and creditors in Kenya trying to stall a related Mauritian administration.

01 April 2021

Shearman & Sterling has continued its London expansion while FTI Consulting has strengthened its Madrid and Abu Dhabi offices, Kroll has promoted four new managing directors in the UK, and EY has hired in Bermuda.

01 April 2021

Africa’s Smile Telecoms Holdings has had its UK restructuring plan sanctioned after a judge found it had fixed “the last piece of the jigsaw”: a third party whose exercise of a put option had given it the discretion on whether the plan came into effect.

30 March 2021

Nearly four months after shareholders resolved it should enter insolvent liquidation, the Middle East's largest contractor has provided information on its bankruptcy proceedings in Dubai.

22 March 2021

UPDATED: A pan-African telecoms group’s UK restructuring plan sanction hearing has been adjourned, after a court found that the sole dissenting creditor had the discretion on whether the plan would come into effect.

19 March 2021

Featured in Heads-Up

A few months after taking over as Piper Sandler’s global head of restructuring, veteran Wall Street banker Todd Snyder speaks to GRR about a potential boom in infrastructure investment, why sub-Saharan Africa is a likely place for new investment activity and his “almost religious” belief in the importance of restructuring to the good functioning of the free market.

15 March 2021

Simmons & Simmons has hired Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s EMEA head of restructuring in London, labelling the practice area “an investment priority” for the firm.

01 March 2021

An investment manager that operated within UAE private equity group Abraaj has failed to obtain documents from the Cayman liquidators of an Abraaj subsidiary, after a court blocked it from bringing litigation due to third-party confidentiality concerns.

01 March 2021