Camille Abousleiman, head of the international capital markets group at Dechert LLP, has been named a 2018 Dealmaker of the Year by The American Lawyer. The award program, which recognizes “the deals that mattered most in 2017 and the attorneys who made them happen,” is widely considered one of the most respected legal accolades in the corporate world.
After helping the Arab Republic of Egypt return to the international debt markets after a near-five year absence caused by the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, Abousleiman’s team went on to advise the country on a series of significant bond issuances, including its largest public bond and the largest issued on the African continent. In just six months, Egypt issued a total of US$11 billion in bonds, helping the nation more than double its dwindling foreign currency reserves, find international partners for financing and stimulate foreign investment.
“It’s always satisfying to be able to help, however modestly, a country get back on track,” Abousleiman told The American Lawyer. “The benefits really flow to the entire population.”
Over the past 35 years, Abousleiman has worked on more than 100 sovereign issuances and on many other first-of-their-kind capital market transactions, including the first corporate debt issuance out of Kuwait and the inaugural sovereign debt issuances of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, among others.
A trailblazer in his field, Abousleiman was named by the Financial Times as one of the ten most innovative financial lawyers in Europe in 2015 — the FT hailed him as a “driving force behind legal work in capital markets in the Middle East”. Last year, after Legal Week named his group Middle East Banking and Finance Team of the Year, Abousleiman was also honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Financial Law Review.
Read more about The American Lawyer's 2018 Dealmakers of the Year.
About Dechert
Dechert is a global law firm focused on sectors with the greatest complexities and highest regulatory demands. We deliver practical commercial insight and judgment to our clients' most important matters. Nothing stands in the way of giving clients the best of the firm's entrepreneurial energy and seamless collaboration in a way that is distinctively Dechert.
