Sabah Nawaz is a partner in the Capital Markets Group in Cadwalader's London office.
Sabah focuses on advising banks, private equity funds, pension funds and corporate borrowers on a wide range of cross-border structured finance, securitisation, debt capital markets, refinancing and restructuring transactions.
Sabah is recognised in Legal 500 UK for her “positive can-do attitude, knowing that she will always deliver”, and by Chambers for being “an expert on the existing market and taking this knowledge and moving it into other new, more bespoke spaces”.
In 2022, Sabah advised a U.K. bank on the £2.975 billion securitisation of its commercial real estate mortgage loan book.
Sabah has a long track record of innovative and precedent setting work, including developing new securitisation product structures. In 2021, Sabah advised the arranger and placement agent on the first European CRE CLO since the global financial crisis. Earlier in her career, Sabah represented the sponsor group on the market’s first European CMBS after the global financial crisis, which placed her at the forefront of the CMBS 2.0 market.
Sabah’s experience also includes a secondment to the transaction execution desk in the securitisation team of an investment bank, focusing on asset-backed securitisations and whole business financings.
Sabah is admitted to practice in England and Wales.
Sabah's representative experience includes:
- advising the arranger and placement agent in 2021, on the first CRE CLO in Europe since the financial crisis;
- advising on landmark CMBS transactions that laid the principles for CMBS 2.0 including the first new money euro public CMBS since the financial crisis and its subsequent refinancing;
- advising the arranger of the first credit tenant-lease secured bond issuance secured by Austrian lease receivables;
- advising a UK financial institution on the £2.975 billion securitisation of its commercial real estate portfolio;
- advising financial institutions on CRE warehouse lending (including by way of “loan on loan” structure) to various sponsors;
- advising a financial institution in 2021 on its innovative €1 billion secured note programme, entered into with one of the UK’s largest insurers;
- advising arrangers on securitisations of consumer loans, auto loans, student loans, credit card receivables and residential mortgages;
- advising financial institutions, funds and originators on the compliance of securitisations with risk retention requirements associated with the acquisition financing of UK and Dutch residential mortgage loan portfolios, the establishment of origination platforms and the subsequent refinancing of such transactions through RMBS;
- advising arrangers and borrowers in respect of whole business financings and corporate secured debt platforms;
- advising financial institutions on European CLO warehouses and public CLO issuance;
- advising financial institutions such as Northern Rock during and in the aftermath of the credit crisis in all aspects of restructuring such as their debt management including advising on portfolio sales;
- advising an airports operator on the liability management aspects of its £13 billion landmark refinancing; and
- advising a London Stock Exchange listed company on its debt for equity swap as part of the Group’s overall restructuring.
