Regional news: Africa & Middle East

South African retail conglomerate Steinhoff can begin to finally make payments to investors that lost out when its share price collapsed in 2017, after a court in Cape Town sanctioned its former holding company’s scheme.

24 January 2022

Teneo has launched a restructuring team in the Middle East with hires from AlixPartners, one week after it recruited pre-pack pioneer Jay Goffman in New York.

24 January 2022

AlixPartners’ head of distressed financial services has joined Alvarez & Marsal to co-lead its European bank restructuring practice in London, while the firm has also made nine promotions in its restructuring group around the world.

20 January 2022

Pan-African telecoms group Smile Telecoms has won approval to convene a plan meeting for a single creditor after convincing the English High Court to employ a never-before-used tool to exclude other plan participants because they are out of the money.

12 January 2022

Singapore-listed offshore marine operator Ezion Holdings says it plans to enter liquidation after an investment from a Malaysian energy infrastructure company fell through and it failed to complete a US$1.6 billion restructuring.

07 January 2022

Saudi conglomerate Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers has lost its appeal against a Cayman Islands court ruling that found it conspired with its former head of investment to “perpetrate one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history” – bringing an end to over 12 years of litigation.

22 December 2021

African telecoms business Smile Telecoms is gearing up to launch another UK restructuring plan in the new year, with Kirkland & Ellis advising in place of Latham & Watkins.

20 December 2021

Kroll has hired two senior members for its restructuring advisory practice in the UAE, from in-house roles within the Dubai government and for an Abu Dhabi sovereign private family.

16 November 2021

KPMG, the former auditor of collapsed UAE private equity fund Abraaj, has lost a jurisdictional challenge to a professional negligence claim brought by two Abraaj subsidiaries – after a court in Dubai’s financial free zone found it had jurisdiction on a pure “necessary and proper” basis.

05 November 2021

King & Spalding partner Mike Rainey in Dubai examines how recent reforms to the bankruptcy regimes in Saudi Arabia and the UAE are changing local markets – and identifies debt-for-equity swaps, non-performing loan transactions and the sale of healthy parts of a business in the context of restructuring as areas ripe for further development.

05 November 2021