Dr Timi Austen-Peters is a Notary Public of the Federal Republic of Nigeria having qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 1986. He is a published author of many articles in the UK and Nigeria, with a book in the UK on the custody of financial assets published by Oxford University Press. His academic qualifications include a doctorate in law from the University of Oxford, an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge and an LL.B. from the London School of Economics (LSE).
He has worked as a lawyer for the United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland, and for a leading commercial law firm in Lagos. He has also worked as a Legal Consultant to the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Cote de Ivoire. In 1999, he set up Austen-Peters & Co, which is now one of the leading law firms in Nigeria, and has established itself as a niche provider of high calibre legal services in banking, securities and capital markets.
As a businessman, Timi Austen-Peters has:
• Acted as agent, partner or country representative for companies as diverse as De La Rue, UBS and SGS;
• Bought and sold the oldest life insurance company in the country, and set up a top 5 pension fund manager as its subsidiary;
• Interests in a merchant bank and a securities company;
• Established and now terminated a concession on a 200 room hotel which was managed for him by a Zimbabwean hotel management company;
• Developed and sold a development of 18 flats in Ikoyi;
• Acquired a stake in a 13,000Ha palm oil plantation that is in the process of being turned around; and
• Acquired a controlling stake in a 70 year old leading EPC firm specialising in Oilfield Equipment, Structural Steel and Marine Structures Engineering and Fabrication in Nigeria.
