Valery Lavrov

Biography

Valery is a Senior Associate based in the Dubai office. He is a Russian-qualified lawyer with over nine years of experience advising international companies on a broad range of corporate matters across Russia, the UAE and Australia. His practice focuses on cross-border M&A, joint ventures, regulatory matters and private equity investments.

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Recent Experience

Throughout his legal career, Valery has advised on various transactions including advice and representation of:

• Selectel, the largest independent IT infrastructure provider, one of the top 3 Russian Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) companies by revenue, in connection with:
  • the acquisition by Catalytic People, a joint venture of Interros and T-Technologies, of a 25% stake in Selectel;
  • the sale of a 10% equity stake in Selectel to an investment company founded by former Megafon CEO Gevork Vermishyan, as well as the sale of a 4.852% stake to Selectel board member Andrey Golukhov;
  • the acquisition of United Network, which operates under the Servers.ru, Exepto.ru and Fozzy.ru brands; and
  • the acquisition by a Tier-5 investment partnership of a 25% stake in Selectel.
• Softline, Russia’s leading IT provider of products and services in the field of digital transformation and information security, in connection with the sale of more than 10% of the shares to the investment company Sk Capital (a subsidiary of VEB.RF and Skolkovo).
• Balchug Capital, a large Armenian investment company, in connection with:
  • the acquisition of a major pet food producer Raduga in Chelyabink Region, Russia; and
  • a subsequent sale of a controlling stake in Raguda to a strategic investor.
• Group of private investors in connection with the establishment and financing of a yacht sailing business in Turkey and subsequent dividend distribution in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
• Perdaman Chemicals and Fertilisers Pty Ltd, in connection with the creation of a joint venture regarding the US$4.2 billion Karratha Urea Project in Western Australia.
• EIG/MidOcean, on its US$12.4 billion joint bid with Brookfield for the acquisition of Origin Energy Limited.
• Major multinational commodity trader, operating primarily in the Asia-Pacific region, in connection with the sale of its key group companies (operating, in particular, in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia) via a bidding process.
• Major multinational retailing company, in connection with the sale of its 100% stake in the companies operating 27 home improvement supplies retail stores in Russia to a private investor.
• Major global asset management group, in connection with the sale of its 100% stake in a Russian company operating a Class “A” business centre in Moscow.
• Rostelecom, an unrivalled Russian leader in the telecom industry:
  • in connection with the establishment of a joint venture with the largest Russian banks which will focus on the development of biometric technologies in Russia;
  • on the disposal of a 44.8% stake in SafeData LLC (SafeData), the leading data centers and cloud services provider in Russia, to Russia-based VTB Bank for US$464.3 million within the JV deal; and
  • on the acquisition of 75% of the developer of Sailfish mobile operating system.
• VTB Capital, Russia’s leading investment bank, in connection with:
  • as financial advisor to the seller – RZD-Infrastructure Projects (subsidiary of Russian Railways) – in connection with its sale of a stake in Sukhodol, a major seaport in the Russian Far East, and the refinancing of the Russian Railways loan to Sukhodol;
  • as financial advisor to the seller, Transtelecom, a leading Russian telecom operator owned by Russian Railways, in connection with the sale of shares in Zapsibtranstelecom and TTK-Svyaz;
  • as financial advisor to Russian Railways (seller) in the auction sale of 100% minus one share in the charter capital of JSC VRK-2, the Russia-based provider of rail car and wagon repair services;
  • as financial advisor and auction manager to UTLC (a subsidiary of the Russian Railways) in the US$968 million sale of 50% + 2 shares in the charter capital of PJSC Transcontainer via auction process; and
  • in connection with US$250 million investment in a Russian online cinema platform Ivi.ru; as well as advising the two co-investors, Millhouse and Invest AG, with respect to due diligence.
• Novaport Group, the largest Russian regional airport group, in connection with:
  • the potential acquisition of 100% in Auriant Group, a large Swedish group of companies operating in the field of exploration and production of gold in Russia; and
  • the potential disposal of 15 Russian regional airports.
• Nipigas acting as the EPC contractor, in connection with US$22 billion construction of a gas processing plant Baltic LNG and technological utilities, infrastructure and offsites in the area of Ust-Luga in Russia for LLC RusChemAlliance as a client.
• The Embassy of the Republic of Korea in connection with its acquisition of premises with a land plot in Moscow for the allocation of the ambassador’s residence.
• Yandex, a technology company that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning, on its acquisition of rights to an approximately four hectare plot of land situated at Kosygina Street in Moscow for the development of its new headquarters. The deal was recognized as “Best property deal in CEE” at Project Finance Awards 2018, organized by EMEA Finance magazine.