Edge International Client 'Cleans Up' at Dealmaker Awards
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
At Edge International, we don't disclose who our clients are (except with their specific prior permission,) let alone blog about them. But here's something that shouldn't go unmentioned (and yes, I do have specific prior permission to disclose....)
One of my South African law firm clients, Webber Wentzel Bowens, has just "cleaned up" both top Corporate Finance Legal Advisor awards (and second in the fourth places in M&A) at the annual Dealmakers Awards in South Africa. They were the only law firm to be placed in the top four in all four categories. Specifically, they won:
- General Corporate Finance - 1st place : legal advisors (transaction flow).
- General Corporate Finance - 1st place : legal advisors (transaction value).
- Mergers & Acquisitions - 2nd place : legal advisors (deal value).
- Mergers & Acquisitions - 4th place : legal advisors (deal flow)
Superbly well done, to David Lancaster and his colleagues!
In a year where M&A activity in South Africa was more than double the previous year at ZAR351bn (+/-US$50bn,) versus ZAR150bn (+/-US$21.5bn) in 2005, first place in M&A (legal advisors by deal value) went to another great South African law firm, Bowman Gilfillan.
For the top four law firms in each of the four categories, click here for a PDF of the results as published in Without Prejudice.
Two mega-deals, namely Barclays Bank’s ZAR33bn (+/-US$4.7bn) purchase of the largest banking group in South Africa, Absa, and SABMiller’s ZAR52bn (+/-US$7.4bn) acquisition of a beer brewing company in Colombia, skewed the M&A figures upward in 2006, it is true. But, according to Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) head of corporate finance Herman Bosman (quoted in Business Day,) “there is no reason to believe this will slow dramatically”. (RMB, by the way, scooped the award in the main category "Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory by deal value," followed by Goldman Sachs in second place, as well as top honors in the "General Corporate Finance" category.)
These encouraging trends reinforce my optimism about the continent of my birth. I believe that those that think Africa in the 21st Century is going to be a replication of the basket case that much of Africa was in the 20th, are going to be proved very wrong! Maybe not in the next 2 - 5 years, but certainly in the next 10 - 20. Right now, it is difficult to see beyond Robert Mugabe's tyranny in Zimbabwe, the civil war in Dafur, the level of violent crime in South Africa and all the other bad news that suppresses the good. Things inevitably improve, though, when the long range fundamentals are positive. I wouldn't have liked to be living in London, Berlin or Hiroshima in 1948, either. Different matter, today.
For previous posts on Africa in this blog, see The Rush for Africa, and Increasing Chinese Influence in Africa, and How Much is a Law Firm Really Worth, and even Swimming with Sharks.
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