Islamic Finance and Investment Team

Bryan Cave’s Islamic Finance and Investment Team works closely with clients to develop investment and financing structures that are sharia-compliant. The Team also advises on domestic and cross-border transactions involving individuals and entities within the Organization of Islamic Cooperation member states, including MENA states. The Team’s clients include sovereign funds, investment banks, private equity funds, construction companies, governmental entities and aircraft producers.

Representative Experience

• Advising Riyadh-based real estate management company on management agreement for 5,000 room hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

• Acting for Qinvest in the sharia compliant financing of the Commonwealth Institute building and development in Kensingston, London, advising both on the Murabaha financing arrangement and a variety of security structures based in a number of jurisdictions
• Represented Qatari sovereign fund in connection with refinancing a £16 million mezzanine loan with a murabaha financing line in relation to Camden Market, London.
• Represented borrower in relation to refinancing two bank facilities (Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale) with murabaha back to back revolving facilities for trade and invoice discounting lines for Regency/Cavendish group of companies.
• Advising the real estate arm of OIC-based (Organization of the Islamic Cooperation) sovereign fund in joint ventures with large German infrastructure companies for national infrastructure projects in the Gulf region.
• Advising a Gulf Emirate on legislative issues surrounding the extension of the legal framework of their offshore financial center (QFC) to their domestic (on-shore) banking and financial services regulatory system.
• Advising a Bahrain-based private equity fund with various U.S. Shari’ah-compliant portfolio investments and their exits.
• Advising a U.S.-based investor group in structuring and implementing a Shari’ah-compliant real estate fund to invest in UK small business park developments.
• Advising the security trustee in first New York law-governed sukuk on U.S. assets (mineral rights).
• Advising a U.S.-based investor group in structuring and implementing a Shari’ah-compliant real estate fund to invest in UK small business park developments.
• Represented overseas lender in an approximately $75 million acquisition and renovation of St. Regis Aspen Resort in Aspen, Colorado using Sharia-compliant secured financing.
• Acted for Islamic financial institution in connection with ijara financing of major $30 million hospital in Kuwait.
• Acted for a leading Saudi Arabian bank in devising a sharia-compliant structure based on a master murabaha agreement for investment in UK based commercial property. The project required lengthy negotiations with the UK tax authorities to gain favorable treatment of profits derived from this Islamic structure.
• Acted for a major Islamic financial institution in Abu Dhabi in connection with the mixed $80 million Islamic/Western financing of district cooling plants in the UAE based on an ijara model and involving complex issues of security interests under both the sharia and local law.