About

Bharat Mehta is an in-house legal counsel, compliance officer and company secretary with over eleven years of experience in capital markets, private equity, fund structuring and management, contracts and other corporate matters. After gaining experience in a technology major, international law firm and a wealth management firm in UK, India and the GCC, Mehta joined A.P. Moller Maersk’s subsidiary APM Terminals Bahrain in 2016. At APM Terminals Bahrain, he had the privilege of leading the company’s most successful IPO and listing on the Bahrain Stock Exchange, a highly complex endeavour which was completed with 5.4 times oversubscription in the record timeframe of nine months. ‘Considering the Bahrain Market, wherein previous IPOs in the last decade have not been successful and given the legal landscape was also evolving, it was surely an exciting challenge to make this a successful IPO’, he reflects on this pivotal career moment. He ensured success by planning the project thoroughly, introducing innovative solutions and choosing the right partners. He further continues on his expanded role on corporate affairs, since the IPO, as another career highlight: ‘Post listing, dealing with magnified regulatory compliance, public shareholders and independent directors has become a new norm requiring enhanced public relations alongside legal skills’. A keen businessman as well as a lawyer, Mehta understands the tendency for businesses to view legal departments as bottlenecks. ‘I believe that as an in-house legal counsel, the onus is on us to ensure that we act as a business partner and not as a bottleneck. I ensure this by understanding the business needs and integrating the same with legal risk mitigation techniques’, he says.