Izabella Szadkowska

Izabella Szadkowska is a Partner in the Corporate team. Her primary practice area is Mergers and Acquisitions.

Having completed several equity capital markets transactions earlier in her career, she specialises in corporate work, particularly foreign investment regime, cross-border corporate and regulatory structure design and implementation (including entity formation and corporate services), as well as intra-group and multiparty reorganisation and restructuring for multinational conglomerates, regional and local corporations, and family business clients.

Her expertise extends to transfer of domicile from and to the UAE, as well as transactional work such as asset acquisition and spin-off, and M&A deals. In addition, her areas of practice include wealth preservation and inheritance advisory, including Wills, and advising on effective asset protection structuring and governance.

Prior to joining Al Tamimi, she trained at Linklaters LLP and practised at Clifford Chance LLP and White & Case LLP. She combines private practice and in-house experience, having acted as Head of Group Legal Department for a major UAE conglomerate, Al Rostamani Group.

Her recent transactional experience includes advising Fonterra Limited (New Zealand) in relation to a multi-jurisdictional restructuring (over USD 2 billion); advising AJ Express Ltd on the sale of a minority stake in their GCC parcel logistics services to DHL eCommerce; advising Kanoo Group on the sale of certain travel business assets across the GCC to American Express Global Business Travel; advising Gulf Medical Projects Company on the sale of the Al Zahra Hospital Group in the Northern Emirates of the UAE for USD 572 million; advising First Reserve, Inc. in relation to its acquisition of Metallum (EUR 670 million); and advising Anglo American in relation to the sale of its Tarmac business in the UAE, Qatar and Oman (transaction value worldwide: GBP 885 million).

Her experience involving PE funds includes advising Gulf Data Hub on a strategic GCC partnership with Kohlberg, Kravis, Roberts & Co. L.P. (USD 5 billion); advising TPG Rise Fund in relation to its USD 1 billion acquisition of the Abraaj healthcare fund; and advising VistaJet in relation to the Rhone Capital transaction (post-money valuation of over USD 2 billion).

Her equity capital markets experience includes acting as lead Partner for Kalyan Jewellers India Limited in relation to its listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange in India and subsequent IPO across the GCC, and as lead Partner for Aster DM Healthcare in relation to its listing on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Securities Exchange in India and subsequent IPO, including complex cross-border restructuring across the GCC.

She holds a Postgraduate Certificate of Proficiency from the University of Auckland School of Law, an LLM (Hons) from Warsaw University and a Diploma from the University of Cambridge School of English and European Union Law. She is a Licensed Legal Consultant with the Government of Dubai Legal Affairs Department and a Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand. She speaks English, Polish and French.