Sara Hinton

Practice Areas

Sara Hinton joined I&P as a partner in January 2014. She is an English qualified solicitor and has dual British/ Egyptian nationality. She has worked in Egypt for over nineteen years and previously worked as a lawyer in London, Hong Kong and the Sultanate of Oman. Prior to joining Ibrachy & Partners Sara headed the Cairo office of a leading English law firm for over 12 years.

Sara's corporate and M&A practice includes advising in relation to both public and private sector entities and her clients include leading local and international private equity firms, banks, insurance companies and multinationals across a wide-range of sectors. She has recently assisted on high-profile deals in the financial services, food, pharmaceutical, travel and media sectors. Sara has particular expertise in relation to the banking sector and has advised on a number of acquisitions including leading the team that advised Sanpaolo IMI S.p.A as sole external counsel in relation to its successful US$1.6 billion bid for the acquisition from the Government of Egypt of 80% of the shares of Bank of Alexandria, the fourth largest bank in Egypt at the time. This was a landmark deal as it was the first of the "big four" public sector banks to be privatised.

Sara also has extensive finance and capital markets experience, in particular, in relation to the establishment of foreign and Egyptian funds and notably advised in relation to the first real estate fund to be established in Egypt.

Sara has a broad projects and infrastructure practice, including a long history of project finance transactions; she advised Exim Bank and the lenders in relation to the first Exim Bank guaranteed project in Egypt being the EBIC 2,000 metric tons per day anhydrous ammonia plant. She has particular expertise in public private partnership projects in Egypt under both the Tenders' Law and the PPP Law advising both the private sector and undertaking government advisory work. In particular, she led the team that advised the Ministry of Finance in conjunction with the International Finance Corporation with respect to a pilot health sector PPP project for Egypt. She also led the teams advising the Ministry of Finance with respect to the design, financing, construction and operation of two separate wastewater treatment plant PPP projects: Abu Rawash WTTP and 6th October WTTP.

Sara regularly advises international companies on inward investment and trade with Egypt including structuring advice, joint ventures, commercial agency and distribution. She has particular expertise in advising upstream oilfield services companies.

Sara is currently the Vice-Chairman of the British Egyptian Business Association, a position she has held for over ten years, and was also a founding member.