Finance and Banking

We serve as legal counsel to South Africa's major banking groups and a number of the major international banks.

We are often mandated to advise on banks' lending arrangements and compliance with the South African banking and financial services regulatory framework. Our mandate for foreign banks at times extends to advising on the establishment of representative offices in South Africa and related aspects of the regulatory framework.

We also advise borrowers from the public and private sector, and many financial services providers and other organisations that have direct and indirect interests in lending arrangements. These organisations include asset managers, developmental finance institutions, private equity funds, insurance underwriters, rating agencies, security trusts and guarantors.

Areas of specialisation include:

• Asset Finance
  advising on finance for aircraft, mechanical and electrical plant and other major capital assets

• Commodities Trading
  advising on ownership versus loan structures, collateral management structures, Input finance / contract growing, Silo certificates / warehouse receipt financing and Milldoor structures

• Corporate Finance
  advising on the financing of mergers and acquisitions, preference share issues, structured and leveraged buy-outs, joint-venture finance and other forms of equity funding

• Project Finance
  advising lenders, project sponsors and other project participants on the structuring and implementation of infrastructure projects and development ventures in all sectors of the economy financed through project finance, including export credit financing and Public Private Partnerships

• Public Finance
  advising lenders, multi-lateral agencies and public sector entities on the acquisition and financing of assets, the regulatory framework relating to the financing of capital expenditure under inter alia the Public Finance Management Act and the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act

• Real Estate Finance
  advising on property loan-stock portfolio financing and security structures and other property finance transactions

• Bank Lending
  advising on and drafting loan security agreements and other documents for all forms of bank lending, including secured and unsecured loans, syndicated lending, cross-border lending, export credit financing and private equity lending

• Bank Products and Services
  advising on electronic banking products and services, credit products, documentary letters of credit, guarantees, bonds, commercial paper, cheques and other negotiable instruments and bills of exchange

• Bank Regulation and Compliance
  advising on all aspects of the Banks Act and related primary and secondary legislation, compliance with the regulatory framework specific to shareholding requirements, branch establishment, operation and capital requirements and merger controls as well as exchange control issues

• Debt Restructuring and Workouts
  advising on and drafting documents for all types of debt restructuring and/or financial recovery programmes, including workouts involving banking consortia with and without the use of a security SPV