Victor Sameria is a Senior Associate in the firm’s Banking & Finance, Merger & Acquisitions and Fintech Practice Groups. He graduated with First Class in Law (LLB) and Distinction in Financial Services Law (LLM) from the University of Buckingham, United Kingdom and is admitted to practise in Nigeria.
He has significant experience in advising sponsors, lenders and corporate borrowers on cross-border mandates including corporate, acquisition, leveraged and project finance transactions.
Victor also has several years of experience (including secondment experience at i-Cell Multimedia Limited – Nigeria’s pioneer value added services (VAS) aggregator) in advising some of the biggest global tech companies and FinTechs including Google; Tencent; Amazon; PayPal; Stripe; Checkout; TikTok (ByteDance); Facebook (now Meta); YouTube; OKX; ByBit, Coinbase, Circle, Yellow Card, Apple; Tidal; Spotify; Kuda; dLocal; EBANX; Sparkle; Netflix; Uber; Western Union; MasterCard etc. His expertise in this regard cuts across payments including cross border remittances and digital assets, digital banking, mobile money, software licensing, e-commerce & marketplaces and telecommunications infrastructure.
A Selection of Relevant Experience
– Advised an assortment of lenders including United Bank for Africa, Zenith Bank, RMB International (Mauritius)/ Rand Merchant Bank Nigeria, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Union Bank of Nigeria, Mauritius Commercial Bank and First City Monument Bank on a US$260 million dual currency senior secured project financing for ANOH Gas Processing Company Limited (AGPC).
– Advised Prime Oil & Gas (formerly Petrobras) in connection with a US$2 billion secured revolving reserve-based lending (RBL) facility.
– Advising a syndicate of lenders including a multilateral financial institution in connection with the restructuring of a US$740 million debt financing to a Nigerian upstream company.
– Advised the African Development Bank (AfDB) on a US$20 million trade finance facility extended to FSDH Merchant Bank Limited (FSDH). The trade finance package includes a US$15 million trade finance line of credit for the support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and indigenous corporates and a US$5 million transaction guarantee to facilitate the confirmation of FSDH’s trade finance transactions.
– Advised Mastercard on the Nigerian law aspects of its minority investment of up to US$200 million in MTN Group Fintech – the digital financial services arm of MTN, Africa’s largest mobile network operator.
– Advised global music streaming service company, TIDAL on its partnership with African telecommunications giant, MTN to provide affordable and convenient music streaming services to its Nigerian customers.
– Advised Kuda – Nigeria’s first digital only bank on their US$10 million seed round (the largest Nigerian seed round as of the time), and subsequently, their US$25 million series A and US$55 million series B funding rounds.
– Advised International Finance Corporation (IFC) on its US$20 million financing for mobility fintech company, Moove Africa for the acquisition of up to 1,400 new cars.
– Advised YouTube on its US$100 million Black Voices Fund.
Expertise
Banking & Finance, Media, Entertainment, Technology and Intellectual Property (METI).
