Mergers and acquisitions
“The firm has successfully built a mighty corporate practice with a particularly strong record in the financial services, technology and mining industries.”
Legal500 EMEA, 2011
Our South African mergers and acquisitions team works both stand alone on major domestic and pan-African deals, and alongside our practice-wide M&A team on complex cross-border transactions throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Central Asia.
We regularly advise on high profile deals for a number of prominent clients across our key industry sectors, particularly in the fields of financial institutions and infrastructure, mining and commodities. We maintain a broad set of expertise across corporate acquisitions law, acting for both listed and unlisted companies in a variety of transactions including sales of shares, joint ventures, and BEE transactions.
Our expertise in corporate merger law, particularly in respect of due diligence, is highly regarded within the African market and we continue to provide advice on this area to South Africa’s largest corporations. We often work in conjunction with the outstanding tax, banking and finance, competition, intellectual property, insurance, employment and property law practices of our practice, seamlessly integrating advice on all aspects of a transaction and providing a full service approach to every deal.
Our areas of work include:
advising in respect of appropriate empowerment structures and transactions
- advising in respect of employment law issues arising out of transactions
- advising on appropriate corporate structures
- advising on appropriate structures of transactions and their implementation
advising on regulatory aspects of transactions, including Exchange Control, Competition Commission filings, the Securities Regulation Code, the listings requirements of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the Financial Services Board
- assessing and advising on tax implications
BEE transactions
- drafting all necessary documents
- due diligence investigations and reports
- environmental aspects
- joint ventures
- sales of businesses and asset sales
- schemes of arrangement
share sales
- structuring Private Equity transactions
- takeover offers
Our recent work:
- Advising Rio Tinto Plc in the restructuring and empowerment transaction relating to Richards Bay Minerals
- Advising Anglo Platinum Limited with its record-breaking ZAR12 billion rights offer
- Advising J P Morgan on their US$660 billion merger of the banking and non-banking interests with Chase Manhattan
- Advising Barclays in its ZAR60 billion acquisition of a majority interest in Absa Group Limited
- Advising Exxaro Resources Limited on the US$3.4 billion combination of its Mineral Sands Operations with the businesses of Tronox
More information on our global mergers and acquisitions practice