Clifford Chance advises Saudi Ground Services

Clifford Chance advised Saudi Ground Services (SGS) on its IPO and listing on the Saudi Stock Exchange. The IPO was undertaken through the sale of 30 per cent of the share capital of SGS to potential investors. SGS allocated 33.84 million shares to institutional investors and 22.56 million shares to retail investors at a price of SAR50 per share. The IPO was considerably oversubscribed and raised SAR2.82 billion (USD752 million).

 SGS is the largest airport ground handling services provider in Saudi Arabia and is the only ground handling services provider that operates across all the airports in Saudi Arabia. SGS was formed as part of the wider privatisation program of Saudia, which is the national carrier of Saudi Arabia, whereby specific businesses and assets were transferred to new entities to operate that line of business including the catering, ground handling and cargo businesses. This IPO represents the second of such businesses to go public after Saudi Airlines Catering Company's IPO in 2012 (on which Clifford Chance also advised).

 This deal took over two and a half years to complete and involved the Clifford Chance team advising SGS on various corporate aspects in order for the company to achieve IPO readiness including converting the company from a limited liability company to a joint stock company, increasing the company's capital to SAR1.88 billion, advising the company in relation to a long-term exclusive ground handling agreement with Saudia and FlyNas, and documenting various other complex arrangements between Saudia and SGS.

The Clifford Chance team was led by Mike Taylor (partner – Dubai). Mike was supported by Khalid Al-Abdulkareem (partner – Riyadh), Majid Al- Sheikh (senior associate – Riyadh), Arun Visweswaran (associate – Dubai), Amro Bakhaider (associate – Riyadh) and Badria Modir (associate – Riyadh).