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publicado el 05 de OCTUBRE de 2009

Freshfields finance partner relocates to Riyadh

International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is increasing its resources in the Middle East by relocating Tobias Müller-Deku, currently finance and corporate partner in the firm’s Munich office, to the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh. The move will further strengthen the firm's presence in the Middle East and in Saudi Arabia in particular, with five partners and more than 40 lawyers based in the region across Freshfields’ network of offices in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, and Riyadh. From October 2009 Tobias Müller-Deku will join forces with corporate partner Patrick Ko and six associates in the Riyadh team. In Saudi Arabia Freshfields also has an association with the local Law Firm of Salah Al-Hejailan. Tobias Müller-Deku will help to further build up the Saudi finance and securities practice and will also be working on corporate matters. In his new function he brings extensive experience from his international practice, having specialised in banking, finance and securities matters since 1994 as well as leading the finance team in Freshfields’ Moscow office between 2000 and 2005. Edward Braham, global head of corporate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, comments: ‘The Middle East and North Africa region is of significant strategic importance for Freshfields and our clients, and we have therefore substantially built up our local finance and corporate practices, among others. Despite the region's resilience to the current global financial crisis, several sectors are now being severely tested in the Middle East. Debt has become more scarce and expensive, and refinancing is requiring more intensive preparation and communication between corporates and lenders. We are very pleased that Tobias will be bringing his extensive experience as a corporate finance advisor to our clients in MENA and Saudi Arabia through his relocation to Riyadh.’ Saudi Arabia is the largest economy in the MENA region, and controls around 25 percent of the world's known oil resources. The Saudi Arabian economy has held up well despite the current crisis, the country being one of the few stable growth regions in the world. Profile: Tobias Müller-Deku has been a partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer since 1999 and works in the firm’s Munich office. He is a member of the finance practice group and from 2000-05 headed the finance team in the Freshfields Moscow office. Tobias holds law degrees from the universities of Würzburg (Germany) and Cambridge (UK). After working for a major Japanese law firm in 1991-92, Tobias held a position in the German Federal Ministry for Economics from 1992-94, where he was in charge of foreign investment and public investment guarantees to, amongst other areas, the CIS. After joining Freshfields in 1994, Tobias has worked on various aspects of banking, finance and securities law for many German and major international banks. While heading the Moscow finance team, Tobias advised banks and issuers on numerous initial public offerings (IPO), among others the first two domestic IPOs in Russia. In Munich, he advised Pirelli Real Estate on the financing of the acquisition of DGAG, Barclays on the financing of the acquisition of BauBeCon by RREEF and of the acquisition of Pirelli by Cerberus. He also advised SFC Smart Fuel Cells AG, C.A.T. Oil AG and Polis AG on their respective IPO, HVB bank on the sale of a NPL portfolio to Goldman Sachs and Air Berlin PLC on the acquisition of dba. Most recently Tobias advised HVB on the financing for Nobel Biocare AG and Swiss National Bank on the acquisition of German assets from UBS.