Azad Ali

Azad’s relevant experience* includes:

• Evercore Inc. on its acquisition of Robey Warshaw LLP
• Libra (aka Diem) Association on a stablecoin proposition
• VISA in its acquisition of Tink, and the aborted acquisition of Plaid (both open banking Fintechs)
• Raymond James in its acquisition of a majority interest in GreensLedge
• A consortium of subordinated bondholders on the Bank of Portugal’s resolution of Banco Espirito Santo (BES)
• Subordinated bondholders on the recapitalization of The Co-operative Bank including a liability management exercise and bail-in of bondholders in connection with the bank’s £1.5 billion recapitalization plan

• Piraeus Bank and Eurobank on their recapitalization following the 2015 Greek bailout
• The underwriters of regulatory capital issuances of major banks, including HSBC and RBS
• Issuers, banks and brokers on matters relating their equity and debt offerings and financing and restructuring transactions, including selling restrictions, stabilization, analysts’ research, ethical walls, market soundings, disclosure issues and insider lists.
• Baupost and Goldfinch’s acquisition of Western Union Business Solutions
• Raymond James in its acquisition of Charles Stanley
• Abu Dhabi Global Market on its establishment as an international financial center in the U.A.E, drafting new laws and regulations for ADGM based on the English common law and U.K. regulation
• Abu Dhabi investors on the acquisition (and subsequent disposal) of certain debt and equity interests in Barclays Bank plc
• Bank of America on a range of strategic global corporate and regulatory matters
• A large UK bank and smaller firms on recovery and resolution planning
• Citi on a number of M&A matters including its acquisition of ING’s Custody and Securities Services Business across Central and Eastern Europe and its sale of Citicorp Electronic Financial Services (CEFS), which was responsible for managing the UK’s Post Office Card Accounts, to JPMorgan Chase – the first test of Part VII of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 for transfers of banking businesses.
• The banks or creditors in many significant Eurozone financial crisis bailouts and restructurings, including Piraeus Bank and Eurobank on their recapitalizations, and bondholders on the recapitalizations of National Bank of Greece, HSH Nordbank and HETA Bank
• A cryptocurrency lender in relation to launching activities
• Deutsche Bank on various M&A and regulatory matters
• Fairfax Holdings Limited on numerous corporate transactions
• Financial institutions, their boards and individual directors and executives on compliance programs, legal and regulatory risk, and regulatory investigations and enforcement, including issues related to insider dealing, market abuse, market manipulation, disclosure, confidentiality of information, anti-money laundering, cyber security and ESG/sustainability
• Various payment service providers on regulatory matters and transactions
• Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citi, Bank of America and others on numerous finance, derivatives, securitization, funds structuring and other transactional matters
• Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE, Inc.) in its establishment of ICE Clear Europe as the first new derivatives clearing house in London since 1880 and other transformative transactions such as the European regulatory aspects of its acquisition of NYSE Euronext, subsequent carve-out of LIFFE and spin-off of the Euronext continental cash equity business, and the establishment of a cleared CDS market
• Various exchanges, MTFs, clearing houses, settlement systems including in relation to M&A in the sector including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc., SIX x-clear AG, LMAX, Eurex Clearing, Clearstream, DTCC, Nasdaq, Bovespa, SGX, among others
• Various banks, hedge funds, central banks, development banks and corporates on sales and trading, prime brokerage arrangements, derivatives clearing, reporting and conduct of business requirements
• Various institutions on business process, IT and offshore outsourcings, including Citi to Amazon Web Services (cloud services), Citibank to J.P. Morgan (in relation to the U.K. Post Office’s “Universal Bank”), Deutsche Bank to State Street (back office services), CSFB to Bank of New York (back office services), Citibank to ABN AMRO (back office services), WestLB to Hewlett Packard (IT), Lloyd’s to Ins-Sure (a joint venture with Xchanging, in relation to LPSO and LCO), Winterthur to Citibank (fund administration)
• Various financial institutions and energy companies on market-wide problems such as LIBOR, FX, the MF Global bankruptcy, extraterritoriality (regulatory perimeter and ESG), and UK/EU sanctions on Russia and other countries

* Including transactions handled prior to joining S&C