Trowers & Hamlins wins Finance Team of the Year at the Lawyer Awards

The Trowers & Hamlins' team was drawn from Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and London and was led by Leroy Levy, as client partner, with significant contributions from Neale Downes, Nick Polley, Toby Wright, Simon Bryan, Adrian Creed, Ralph Picken and Richard Hildebrand.

Trowers & Hamlins advised the Etisalat Consortium, led by the UAE based company Etisalat (the Gulf region's largest telecom service provider), on a transaction with a number of steps that culminated in the creation, funding and roll out of Mobily, the first challenger to Saudi Arabia's telecoms monopoly.

Highlights of the project were:

A US $2.3 billion Islamic financing deal, the largest and most successful ever.

A massively oversubscribed (50 times) IPO with one of the highest participation per capita rates of any IPO in history.

A key step towards fulfilling Saudi Arabia's commitment to privatise state assets and broaden share ownership - in fact it sets a new benchmark for popular share ownership in the Gulf.

Leroy Levy, Partner in the Dubai office of Trowers & Hamlins: "We are tremendously proud to have worked with Mobily on such a ground breaking deal and delighted to have won this award. This deal highlights the integration of our teams across the Middle East and London and also shows our commitment to working in Saudi Arabia."