Gide has unique experience in the area of Islamic finance. We have played a pioneering role in the development of Islamic finance, both in France and abroad, and have, as a result, participated in a number of sukuk issues and real estate acquisitions on behalf of Gulf investors, both in France and abroad.
The interest of the firm for Islamic finance dates back to 2005, when Gide was asked by Lebanese commercial bank BEMO to structure one of the first sukuk al-ijara issues based on cash flows generated from the rental of the motor vehicle fleet belonging to the third largest Saudi vehicles rental company, Al Talaa. This sukuk al-ijara issue received several awards for its particularly innovative character. In particular, it combined a transfer of vehicles and leasing contracts to an ad hoc company in Saudi Arabia with a sukuk issue listed on the DIFX and the Dublin stock exchange.
Since 2003, Gide has also put in place many real estate financing operations for more than 6 billion euros, on behalf of many banks such as Morgan Stanley, Société Générale, Citigroup, Eurohypo and ING. These acquisitions were structured, at the request of Gulf investors, in the form of sukuk or murabaha issues. The firm has most recently acted, on behalf of a pool of French and foreign banks, in murabaha restructuring transactions concerning real estate assets.
Based on this expertise, current head of the IMF Christine Lagarde asked Gilles Saint Marc to chair the Paris Europlace Islamic Finance Commission from 2008 to 2010. The Commission is responsible for adapting the French legal and fiscal framework to Islamic finance. It was through the work of this Commission that four regulations concerning investment funds and sukuk and four tax guidelines for ensuring the fiscal neutrality of sukuk, murabaha, ijara and istisna'a transactions were adopted by the French Financial Markets Authority and NYSE-Euronext.
Our Arabic-speaking lawyers have also participated in the translation of norms issued by AAOIFI, from literary Arabic to French.