Lara is a Senior Associate in our corporate team in Dubai. She is an English qualified lawyer with experience working in Dubai and London. Lara spent more than six years working in-house at a leading private equity firm and prior to that, worked at a magic circle law firm in London. She has developed strong commercial and operational experience through portfolio management alongside her legal skills and is able to advise on acquisitions, disposals, IPOs, fund structuring and general corporate work.
Lara drafts, negotiates and reviews agreements such as SHAs, SPAs, subscription agreements and other key transaction documents. Lara has experience leading due diligence on both the buy-side and sell-side including reviewing documents and preparing legal due diligence reports. Her commercial contracts experience includes reviewing, drafting and negotiating real estate, corporate, commercial, IP, employment and franchise agreements. She has supported on transactions involving a range of sectors including education, healthcare, oil and gas and financial services among others.
Lara speaks English and Arabic.
- Advising PepsiCo on the disposal of Pioneer Foods, a leading cereal maker in the United Kingdom, to Sanitarium (owner of Weet-Bix).
- Advising PepsiCo on the sale of its interest in a high-quality dairy and juice products business to its joint venture partner, Almarai.
- Advising Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner’s global investment firm, on its acquisition of a minority stake in Emerging Markets Property Group, an online classifieds business.
- Advising a major warehousing and logistics company on its acquisition of a 49% stake in a cold chain storage and transportation business.
- Advising a Bahraini financial investor on the acquisition of a data verification services businesses from a global private equity house.
- Advising a bidder in an attempted acquisition of telecommunication towers in Tunisia.
- *Assisting with the review, preparation and drafting of a private placement memorandum for a leading private equity firm’s US$ 1 billion investment fund;
- *Advising Fajr Capital on the sale of GEMS Education, the world’s largest provider of K-12 private education to CVC Capital Partners;
- *Advising Fajr Capital on the bolt-on acquisition for GEMS Education in Saudi Arabia;
- *Advising Fajr Capital on the sale of Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam (BIBD) to Brunei Investment Agency;
- * Advising Fajr Capital on the sale of National Petroleum Services, one of the largest regionally owned oilfield service companies, to National Energy Services Reunited Corp, a special purpose acquisition vehicle (SPAC) listed on the NASDAQ;
- * Advising Fajr Capital on the sale of subsidiaries of a portfolio company;
*Legal experience prior to joining Freshfields.
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DIFC, PO Box 506569