The technical expertise of leading African law firm, Bowmans, has once again been recognised. The firm walked away with four practice awards at the African Legal Awards ceremony held in Johannesburg on Friday last week (2 September).

Chairman and senior partner, Ezra Davids says, ‘The fact that our work has been recognised in this way is not only a credit to our teams but also to our clients and the investments that they are making in Africa’s growth and development. We are very proud of the joint contribution that we are making in this endeavour.’

The firm won:

  • Banking and Finance Team of the Year (Small-Mid Practice) for its work on African Rainbow Capital Group’s restructure.  This complex transaction included multiple back-to-back preference share funding transactions; the redemption, buy-back and issuance of shares in several intra-group entities; a number of asset transfers; and concurrent filings with various regulators in four jurisdictions. It impacted close to 30 investments and other financial instruments held by ARC as well as a substantial external funding facility.
  • Capital Markets Team of the Year for its work advising Standard Bank on its acquisition of Liberty. The transaction created the largest financial services platform in Sub-Saharan Africa spanning 20 African countries with active bancassurance partnerships in 14. Significant shareholder value will be unlocked, with ZAR 0.6 billion synergies per annum expected after two years. (This is the second consecutive year that Bowmans has received this team of the year award.)
  • Tax Team of the Year for the tax-related aspects of its work advising Allianz SE (through Slaughter and May) on its joint venture with Sanlam. The combined operations of Sanlam and Allianz will create a premier pan-African non-banking financial services entity operating in 29 countries across the continent with a combined group equity value in excess of USD 2 billion. The joint venture will become the largest non-banking financial entity on the continent.
  • Transportation and Infrastructure Team of the Year for its work on Lots 15 and 18 of the Kenya Roads Programme where Bowmans acted as the Kenyan law advisors to the lenders (Standard Bank South Africa and Standard Bank Kenya) on the financing of the project valued at USD 140 million. It is envisaged that the project will have an impact across 10 Kenyan counties, which equates to about 25% of the counties in Kenya. (This is the second consecutive year that Bowmans has received this team of the year award.)

The African Legal Awards are hosted by Law.com International in partnership with the Corporate Counsel Association of South Africa (CCASA) and Africa Legal. Now in their ninth year, the organisers say that the awards ‘continue to showcase incredible talent, recognising more of a pan-African audience each year’.

These awards follow the recent announcement that Bowmans had walked away with a total of six IFLR Africa awards: Overall M&A Team of The Year; M&A Firm of the Year: South Africa; Jurisdictional Firm of the Year: South Africa; Loans Firm of the Year: South Africa; Project Finance Firm of the Year: South Africa; and advised on the deal named M&A Deal of the Year (the acquisition by Ardagh Glass of Consol).