Norton Rose Fulbright named M&A team of the year at the 2017 African Legal Awards

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright was named M&A team of the year at the 2017 Legal Week Africa Awards.

The Awards, held on September 8, 2017 in Johannesburg, South Africa, recognise exceptional achievement from within Africa’s legal community and are judged by an independent panel of figures from across various industries. The Norton Rose Fulbright team won the award for its work on Barclays Bank PLC’s (Barclays) circa £2.2bn divestment of Barclays Africa. The deal involved advising Barclays on the sale of a circa 34% stake in JSE listed subsidiary Barclays Africa Group Limited (Barclays Africa). This complex, cross-border deal drew upon the expertise of the firm’s leading banking, corporate, regulatory and tax lawyers in the UK and South Africa. The transaction involved the largest book build in South African history and a regulatory review process extending to 11 African jurisdictions.

A cross-border, multi-disciplinary Norton Rose Fulbright team worked closely with Barclays in-house team to complete the deal. The separation negotiations were led by Barclays relationship partners Alan Bainbridge (London) and Kevin Cron (Johannesburg) alongside Barclays’ legal in house team led by David Jackson, Global Head of Principal M&A Legal, Simon Croxford, General Counsel, Group Centre Legal and Win Chung, Director, Principal M&A Legal. The bookbuild negotiations and process were led by partners Fiona Millington (London) and Alistair Dixon and Shawn Barnett (Johannesburg) alongside Barclays’ in house capital markets team led by Ben Rumble, Head of Group Corporate and Treasury Legal and Richard Adair, Vice President, Group Corporate and Treasury Legal and Cuthbert Kendall, Director, Equity Capital Markets Legal.

Alan Bainbridge commented: “We are delighted to have been recognized by the African Legal Awards for our M&A work and this reflects the stellar efforts of our team that worked alongside Barclays to get the deal through.”

For further information please contact:

Louise Nelson, Senior PR Manager
Tel: +44 (0)20 7444 5086; Mob: +44 (0)7909 684 893
louise.nelson@nortonrosefulbright.com

Notes for editors:

Norton Rose Fulbright

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global law firm providing the world’s preeminent corporations and financial institutions with a full business law service. The firm has more than 4,000 lawyers and other legal staff based in Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Recognized for its industry focus, Norton Rose Fulbright is strong across all the key industry sectors: financial institutions; energy; infrastructure, mining and commodities; transport; technology and innovation; and life sciences and healthcare. Through its global risk advisory group, the firm leverages its industry experience with its knowledge of legal, regulatory, compliance and governance issues to provide clients with practical solutions to the legal and regulatory risks facing their businesses.

Norton Rose Fulbright operates in accordance with its global business principles of quality, unity and integrity, aiming to provide the highest possible standard of legal service in each of its offices and to maintain that level of quality at every point of contact.

Norton Rose Fulbright Verein, a Swiss verein, helps coordinate the activities of Norton Rose Fulbright members but does not itself provide legal services to clients. Norton Rose Fulbright has offices in more than 50 cities worldwide, including London, Houston, New York, Toronto, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Sydney and Johannesburg. For more information, see nortonrosefulbright.com/legal-notices.