Biography: Mergers and Acquisitions

Pervez Akhtar is regional managing partner and head of the MENA region corporate practice at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and is a recognised leading specialist with more than 15 years of extensive experience in corporate transactional and corporate finance work.

His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions (particularly cross-border) private equity investments and strategic joint ventures. 'Akhtar is one of the best-known M&A lawyers in the region.'(IFLR1000).

He specialises in advising some of the most successful local and international corporates and private equity funds on their investments throughout the MENA region as well as sovereign wealth funds and government investment vehicles on transactions integral to their international strategic investments and economic diversification programmes.

Pervez has advised on some of the most complex deals, many of which have been cross-border and include some of the largest M&A and investment transactions to take place in the MENA region including deals awarded M&A Team of the Year and M&A Deal of the Year at the IFLR Middle East Awards.

Pervez works across the GCC and wider MENA region including in Egypt and Turkey where he is also personally ranked in Chambers Global 2012 as an expert based abroad for his corporate/M&A work in the country. He also 'earns particular peer and client recognition for his funds work across the Middle East and North Africa' (Chambers Global 2011) and is a 'regular fixture in the funds market' Chambers Global Investment Funds Middle East 2011.