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Corporate

  • Overview
  • Experience
  • Market recognition
  • Insights

Our corporate team supports South African, African and international companies including some of the world’s leading enterprises, emerging startups and financial institutions in their development and investment activities.  

From mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and venture capital to private and public equity and debt offerings, we assist clients through all stages of their transactions to ensure successful deal outcomes, be they domestic or cross-border. 

Our clients benefit from a valuable combination of global insight and local knowledge of the South African market that allows us to handle all aspects of corporate transactions. Understanding the industry and the day-to-day issues faced by our clients is critical to our success. That is why alongside our legal experience, our corporate lawyers have an additional industry-specific focus - whether it is banking and financial services, consumer goods and retail, healthcare, hospitality and leisure, insurance, manufacturing, technology or other sectors. 

Our team's particular areas of focus are:

  • External growth strategies and internal corporate restructuring
  • Joint ventures, foreign partnerships and investments into and out of Africa
  • M&A, both public and private
  • Private equity transactions
  • Equity and debt capital markets
  • Public company and corporate governance

Experience has included advising:

  • FirstRand, South Africa’s largest financial services institution, in the GBP1.1 billion acquisition of Aldermore Group PLC, a British specialist lender and savings bank. 
  • Royal Reesink, one of Europe's largest distributors of machinery for agriculture, landscape maintenance and golf courses, on their acquisition of all the issued shares of Smith Mining Equipment (Pty) Ltd, a South African company representing worldwide leading brands in the specialist machinery, turf maintenance and off-road vehicle market.
  • TMH Africa, a subsidiary of Transmashholding, the largest manufacturer of rolling stock in Russia, partially owned by the Black Economic Empowerment partner, MJISA, on the acquisition of a 45,000 sqm DCD rolling stock manufacturing facility in South Africa from DCD Group.
  • AFGRI Holdings (Pty) Ltd in its successful bid to acquire the entire stake (99.81%) of the National Bank of Greece S.A. and its subsidiary, the South African Bank of Athens.
  • Dimension Data UK Investments Ltd on their acquisition of 75% of the shares in e2y Limited across South Africa, Spain, US and Denmark.
  • As a part of a team, Accel-AKKR on the acquisition of Sequent and the subsequent Sequent acquisition of Geosoft. The transaction took place across Canada, the UK, Australia, South Africa, the USA, Russia, Peru, Chile and Brazil. This transaction won M&A Transaction of the Year Award at the 2019 INFINZ Awards in New Zealand.
  • A financial services holding company and a South African bank in concluding a joint venture agreement in terms of which they will offer expanded financial services solutions to their respective customers.
  • A South African bank in the disposal of its branded credit card business to an a newly formed South African bank.
  • A UK based holding company in the sale its assets in a technology and software company across multiple countries.
  • A Namibian bank on the acquisition of a Namibian financial services group that provides investment and wealth management services.
  • Chambers Global (2018-2020) – Ranked in Corporate / M&A.  Sources commend the team for its "commercial and practical approach," which "gets a deal done in time without compromising on quality," adding that the team is "decidedly accessible and responsive." 
    Others highlight the group's client service, saying: "The firm is very client-centric and has a good understanding of a range of business issues. The firm also responds quickly to client requests."
  • Legal500 (2018-2020) – Ranked in Commercial, corporate and M&A.  Sources say ‘The firm has managed to attract some of South Africa’s leading and most promising lawyers in both commercial and M&A.