Expertise

Hardeep Plahe is an English-qualified partner and cross-border transactional lawyer based in the London office of Addleshaw Goddard. Hardeep has a broad and deep knowledge of the Middle East business landscape having spent 16 years in the region. Hardeep has a wide-ranging practice covering M&A, joint ventures and investment transactions across a range of industries. He has a particular specialism in the financial services sector where he has advised on both M&A and financial regulatory work in the Middle East. His clients include multinational companies, financial institutions, private equity firms, sovereign wealth funds and governments. He has helped clients navigate their way through some of their most complex and important transactions and financial regulatory matters in the UK, Continental Europe and the Middle East. Hardeep is ranked as a "Leading Lawyer" in his fields of practice and recognised by Chambers Global, Legal 500, IFLR 1000 and other legal directories. He spent over a decade in Gibson Dunn’s Dubai office including over four years as the Dubai managing partner. Hardeep also spent over a decade at Linklaters in both London and Dubai.

Set out below are a representative list of transactions and other matters he has advised upon:

Coventry Building Society: on its £780 million cash acquisition of The Co-operative Bank Holdings p.l.c. (including The Co-operative Bank p.l.c.).

Emirates NBD:   on the (i) sale of Abraaj Capital’s stake in Network International Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic and the shareholders’ arrangements between Emirates NBD, Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic;. (ii) on the £2.2bn IPO and listing of Network International; and. (iii) on the US$12bn merger of Emirates Bank International and National Bank of Dubai and the creation of Emirates NBD.

Investcorp: on (i) the sale of a 20% stake in Investcorp to Mubadala Development Company; (ii) on its investment in Reem Hospital in Abu Dhabi; (iii) reorganisation and delicensing of Investcorp as a commercial bank and the licensing and establishment of Investcorp Financial Services as a Category 1 investment business firm; and (iv) delisting of Investcorp from the Bahrain Borse.

Blackstone (in consortium with Fajr Capital and Mumtalakat) on the acquisition of a significant minority stake in GEMS Education.

Royal Bank of Scotland: on the (i) DFSA regulatory aspects of its bid for ABN AMRO; (ii) sale of its retail business in the UAE to Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank; (iii) sale of its private client business in the UAE to the new ABN AMRO Bank (formed by the Dutch State).

Etisalat on the carve out of its UAE data centre business, the merger of such business with G42’s data centre business and a joint venture with G42 to create the UAE’s largest provider of such business.