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Multi-Jurisdictional Maples Team Advise First 'Unicorn' Middle East Company to Trade on NASDAQ

12 Apr 2022

Maples and Calder, the Maples Group's law firm, previously announced its role in advising Swvl Holdings Corp ("Swvl") on both the British Virgin Islands ("BVI") and Cayman Islands legal aspects of a business combination with Queen's Gambit Growth ("Queen's Gambit"), a Cayman Islands special purpose acquisition company founded and led entirely by women.  The firm is pleased to share that the transaction closed on 31 March 2022 and resulted in Swvl's Class A ordinary shares and warrants trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbols "SWVL" and "SWVLW", respectively.

 

From the business combination, Swvl received US$164.8 million from its upsized, fully committed US$111.5 million PIPE and approximately US$53.3 million of cash from Queen's Gambit's trust account net of redemptions.

 

Chris Newton, a Corporate Partner based in the firm's BVI office led the BVI legal team with the assistance of fellow Corporate Partner, Ruairi Bourke and Chartered Legal Executive, Chloe Harris. Michael Johns, a Corporate Partner based in the firm's Cayman Islands office with assistance from Consultant Nichola Bashforth also advised Swvl on the Cayman Islands legal aspects of the business combination.

 

Commenting on the transaction, Chris said "Having advised the team at Swvl since its inception, we were delighted to close this transaction and see Swvl list on NASDAQ.  With the large number of SPACs in the market looking for targets for a business combination, we expect to see more BVI and Cayman Islands companies go public through a de-SPAC and look forward to continuing to provide our market leading expertise in this area throughout 2022 and beyond."

Michael added "Despite the several challenges faced by SPACs in 2022, the success of the Swvl transaction demonstrates the resilience of the SPAC market and the excellent opportunities still available for SPAC management teams and investors."

The Maples Group's unique ability to provide British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Jersey, Irish and Luxembourg legal advice through its international law firm, Maples and Calder, in addition to its capacity to provide a wide range of corporate services to SPAC-related entities through its fiduciary business, makes the Group the perfect choice for international businesses considering SPAC IPOs and business combinations.

 

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Corporate

Advising on the laws of the BVI, the Cayman Islands, Ireland, Jersey and Luxembourg, our global corporate team provides expert legal advice to corporate clients on all corporate commercial matters.  Our clients include major banks, multinationals and institutional investment firms, leading law and accountancy firms and a number of state / government entities across all industry sectors.