GLA & Company acted as sole legal counsel for Sellers Bait Al Aseel and Mr. Bashar Al Ameer in the sale of 35% of their stake in Gissah Perfumes Company ahead of the fragrance company’s planned initial public offering.  Gissah, founded in Kuwait, plans to relocate to Saudi Arabia ahead of an IPO on the kingdom’s main market. It currently operates from 80 stores in 25 cities across Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Bahrain.  The buyer of the stake was the Saudi private equity firm Jadwa Investment, which was led by the esteemed law firms of Clifford Chance and ASAR.

GLA led on all aspects of the transaction including the negotiation and conclusion of the share purchase agreements, shareholders arrangements and all closing aspects of the deal.  In addition, GLA secured Merger Control clearance from the Kuwait Competition Protection Agency needed to finalize the deal.  The transaction was able to highlight the strengths of GLA & Company’s regional expertise as both its Kuwait and Saudi offices were deeply involved in the Kuwait and Saudi aspects of the deal, which were substantial.

The GLA team was led by Managing Partner, Alex Saleh as well as Partners Yousef El Amly, Fadi Daher, Fawaz Al-Dubaikhi, Legal Director Maha El Meihy, Senior Associate Asad Ahmad and Associates Salma Farouq, Fahad Albaijan, Jehan Saleh and others.

Alex Saleh, commenting on the transaction, said, “it was an amazing opportunity to showcase both our Saudi and Kuwait offices in completing this exciting deal, where it is always challenging to overcome both commercial and regulatory issues in these jurisdictions. Not withstanding, given the positive spirits of all the parties involved, we were able to overcome the challenges and close, reflecting the goodwill of everyone.  Hopefully this transaction can serve as a blue-print for the many other cross-border deals that are in the pipeline between KSA and Kuwait.”

 GLA & Company is one of the premier law firms in the Middle East and one of the largest independent law firms in the region.  Established only recently, with over 80 lawyers between itself and its association with Habib Al Mulla & Partners, the firm has offices throughout the UAE in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt and Kuwait.

For more information, please see Arab News Business release and  Bloomberg Press Release.