Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance advises Nakheel on its district cooling transaction with Empower

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance has advised long-standing client Nakheel on its transaction with Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower) in relation to 19 district cooling assets. This is a strategic move that will allow Nakheel to focus on its core business and enhance the services provided to stakeholders at some of its biggest, most established communities and retail destinations in Dubai.

The Clifford Chance team was led by partners Deniz Tas (corporate) and Richard Parris (projects). They were supported by a core deal team comprising partner Tariq Imam (real estate); senior associates Nicholas Newman (corporate), Oliver Jarvis-Bicknell (corporate), Zahra Shahab (corporate) and Daryl Teo (real estate); associates Tammie Le (corporate) and Mahmoud ElBanhawi (finance); and trainees Megan Hodges (corporate) and Ahmed Shafiek (finance).

Additional assistance was provided by:

District Cooling (including projects and construction): Paul Coates (partner), Inaamul Laher (counsel), Caireen McCluskey (senior associate), Suzanne Dand (associate), Jason Gouveia (associate)

Finance: Graham Brewer (partner), Bola Coker (senior associate), Arman Ghafarokhi (associate)

Real Estate: Richard Cameron (senior associate)

Deniz comments: "We are delighted to have supported Nakheel on this strategic transaction, which involved a variety of novel features that are unique to these types of non-core asset disposal structures. This was a complex and multi-faceted transaction for which Clifford Chance leveraged its market leading corporate, projects, real estate, construction and finance expertise in order to help achieve deal execution.”

Ranked 1st for M&A in the Middle East and Africa by Mergermarket in 2020, Clifford Chance regularly advises on the region's most high profile, largest and innovative M&A transactions. This has recently included advising DP World on its acquisition of JSE-listed Imperial Logistics; Aldar Properties on its AED963 million divestment of district cooling assets to Tabreed; PIF on its US$69 billion sale of its stake in SABIC; AD Power's US$20 billion sale to TAQA; and NCB on its US$223 billion bank merger with Samba.