Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie

Senior Partner: Aniekan Ukpanah

Managing Partner: Jumoke Lambo

Number of partners: 14

Number of lawyers: 110

Languages: English

Firm Overview:

[Who we are] Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie is a full-service, multi-disciplinary law firm focused on facilitating corporate and commercial business throughout Nigeria and across Africa.

[Evolution] Founded in 1983, UUBO has evolved into a multi-disciplinary,16-partner concern with 137 professional employees, including more than 86 lawyers, with offices in Nigeria’s key commercial centres.

[Network and affiliations]: We enjoy an extensive network of long-term regional and international relationships with reputable African and international law firms and strategic affiliations with leading global organisations that contribute to our strong capacity to deliver dynamic solutions seamlessly and to coordinate multi-jurisdictional assignments across 21 practice areas to the diverse local, African and international clients with whom we are privileged to work.

[Culture]: We are privileged to enjoy a reputation for our culture of excellence and long-term commitment to quality service delivery. From its inception, our philosophy has been that legal advice should be of the highest possible standards, accessible, commercially oriented, and consistently sound on principle.

[Reputation] As a firm, we have developed a reputation for being trusted with innovative assignments, facilitating complex, unusual transactions, resolving a broad range of disputes, and generating legal solutions relatively quickly.

The diverse backgrounds, skills and insights of our lawyers’ and our collaborative, ‘hands-on’ approach to solving problems all contribute to our work's recurrently high independent peer and positive client reviews. This has resulted in top-tier rankings in leading global directories, including Chambers Global Directory, Chambers FinTech Guide, the Legal 500, Who’s Who Legal and the IFLR 1000, which summarised research findings to report that UUBO is“…widely accepted as the corporate firm of choice in Nigeria and the go-to firm for a wide percentage of international outfits looking for local counsel in Nigeria.’’

[Bench depth] Without exception, all of our male and female partners have been recognised by a variety of regional and international publications and organisations for the quality of their work and leadership in the legal space, and the depth of our bench is demonstrated by the independent recognition and awards accorded to several of our associates as ‘up and coming’ stars in their areas of specialisation.

We are particularly proud of the fact that for over 40 years, our 14-partner firm has been and remains a meritocracy with unparalleled gender parity across its partnership from inception and all levels of employment in Nigeria.

[Institutionalisation]As a large and evolving firm, our internal structure is a key contributor to our continued success. In addition to our lawyers and other professionals, we have strong organisational structures and the support of a fully fleshed operations unit with experienced back-office talent, including a robust technology and business enterprise team, all led by a chief operations officer. We attribute the readiness with which we sustain our business continuity and have continued to facilitate our clients' business in variable and even challenging circumstances – including the unprecedented global pandemic - to the drive and dedication of our dynamic support team.

[CSR]: The institutionalisation of the firm’s structure allows us to remain a top-ranked firm in the legal space while ensuring that we can execute and contribute to our many CSR and pro bono projects. We strongly believe in giving back and do so via a variety of initiatives and organisations such as the Lex Mundi Hurricane Disaster Relief Trust, various COVID-19 relief efforts, Child Lifeline (an association for the care and education of street children and young persons in need) among many others. We provide support on a pro-bono and charitable basis to various institutions, including healthcare, micro, small, and medium enterprises, arts and business space, and other sectors.

Main Areas of Practice:

■ Aviation

■ Banking & Finance

■ Business Establishment

■ Capital Markets

■ Company Secretarial Services through Alsec Nominees Limited

■ Competition and Antitrust

■ Compliance and Investigations

■ Corporate Advisory

■ Dispute Resolution

■ Employment

■ Fintech

■ Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment

■ Mergers, Acquisition, Restructuring

■ Mining & Metals

■ Oil & Gas

■ Power, Infrastructure and Projects

■ Private Equity and Venture Capital

■ Pro Bono

■ Real Estate

■ Tax

■ Telecommunications, Media, Technology/Data Protection

Some of our notable transactions include:

Banking & Finance:

• The firm advised Seplat Energy Plc on the Nigerian elements of the financing by the lenders for the proposed 100% acquisition of the shares of two holding companies (Mobil Development Nigeria Inc and Mobil Exploration Nigeria Inc.) in the target, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited from the sellers.
• Advised the Sahara Energy Group in connection with the restructuring of loan facilities worth an aggregated USD 723 million, aimed at mitigating the impact of the devaluation of the Naira on its business.
• Advised Geometric Power Limited on the debt restructuring of a facility of USD 560 million provided by a syndicate of Nigerian Lenders to Geometric Power Aba Limited (an affiliate of Geometric Power Limited)
• Advised Geometric Power Limited on the proposed investments of USD 65 million in the Aba Power Plant Project, by several investors (including the African Export and Import Bank and the Government of Abia State).
• Advised IFC on its proposed loan of the Naira equivalent of USD 50 million to the Lagos State Government (Borrower) for financing the development, construction, and rehabilitation of two Quality Bus Corridors to be implemented by Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority.
• Acted as Nigerian counsel to Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH in connection with its USD 50,000,000 loan facility to United Bank for Africa PLC.
• Advising OCP Africa Fertilizers Nigeria Limited, the Nigerian subsidiary of the OCP Group, a leading Moroccan phosphoric acid manufacturer and phosphate fertilizer producer, in connection with a proposed loan facility from First Bank of Nigeria Limited to OCP Africa Fertilizer Nigeria Limited under the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Differentiated Cash Reserve Requirement (DCRR) Loan regime

Corporate Advisory (including M&A, Private Equity):

• Advising the lead investor on the Softbank Vision-led USD400 million funding round for OPay, the Nigerian mobile-payments platform, which marks the fund’s first investment in an African startup
• Advising Equinix, a data centre business in relation to the acquisition of MainOne Cable Company Limited, a connectivity and data centre business incorporated in Mauritius
• Advising Seplat Energy Plc and Seplat Energy Offshore Limited on the Nigerian elements of a proposed USD1.283 billion (and up to an additional USD300 million contingent consideration) acquisition of 100% of the issued share capital of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited.
• Advising on the USD500 million merger of BUA Sugar Refinery Limited, IRS Flour Mills Limited, IRS Pasta Limited, BUA Rice Limited, BUA Oil Mills Limited and BUA Foods Limited under the new section 711 of Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020.
• Advised B Capital Global Growth Fund III L.P on the Nigerian law aspects of its investment in Flutterwave Inc’s USD250 million series D fundraising round.
• Advised BOC Holdings (“BOC UK”) on the sale of its entire shareholding in BOC Gases Nigeria PLC (“BOC Nigeria”) and the assignment of certain claims owed to BOC UK and certain members of the Linde Plc Group to TY Holdings Limited (“TYH”).
• Advising TY Holdings Limited (“TYH”) in connection with the mandatory takeover offer (“MTO”) for the shares of BOC Gases Nigeria PLC (“BOC Gases”) preparing financial services agreement and reviewing the MTO document to ensure compliance with the agreed structure for the MTO as well as all applicable laws and rules.
• Advised Pembani Remgro Infrastructure Managers Proprietary Limited and Interxion II BV on their joint acquisition of the data centre assets from Medallion Communications Limited and subsequent transfer of the data centre assets to a newly incorporated Nigerian entity, Medallion Data Centres Limited.
• Advised General Atlantic Service Company L.P. / Beyond Net Zero in connection with its proposed acquisition of preferred shares in Greenlight Planet, Inc, an off-grid solar power provider that has a Nigerian subsidiary, Greenlight Planet Sun King Nigeria Limited.

Projects & Energy:

■ An international energy and infrastructure conglomerate on the phased project construction, financing and development of a 530MW power infrastructure in an East African country

■ Daystar Power Group in connection with the multi-million-dollar debt financing from Sunfunder Inc. for the expansion of its solar power projects for commercial and industrial energy users

■ A power company on the debt restructuring of a facility provided by three Nigerian Lenders to an affiliate company

■ Advised Daystar Power Group on the multimillion-dollar debt financing from Sunfunder Inc. for the expansion of its solar power projects for commercial and industrial energy users

■ An oil and gas company on its acquisition of a 45% participating interest in a production sharing contract in respect an OML