- Overview
- Significant Matters
Bowmans offers a comprehensive reward advisory service to both management and remuneration committees.
We provide seamless reward advisory services across multiple jurisdictions and emerging African markets. We are differentiated by our ability to provide comprehensive advisory services and bespoke solutions tailored to each client’s unique needs.
We assist company management to develop and implement broad-based remuneration strategies that align with business objectives and market trends. We provide independent and objective advice on executive remuneration to remuneration committees, which ensures that pay structures are competitive, equitable, and aligned with shareholder interests.
Our multidisciplinary team includes experts in employment and commercial law, tax, finance, industrial psychology, human capital management and quantitative analysis.
We excel in navigating local regulatory landscapes, which makes us the preferred partner for multinational corporations that operate in various regions with diverse regulatory requirements.
Specialist Services
Our core reward services focus on designing and implementing effective reward strategies to attract, retain and motivate top talent. Our expertise includes:
- Remuneration philosophy, strategy and policy design
- Total reward management
- Job analysis, documentation and evaluation
- Total remuneration benchmarking
- Designing pay structures/ developing pay scales
- Performance and talent management strategies
- Foundational benefits
We specialise in creating robust and effective incentive programs that align employee performance with organisational goals. These plans are tailored to meet the unique needs of organisations, ensuring they drive the desired outcomes.
- Short-term incentives (STIs)
- Long-term incentives (LTIs)
- Single incentives
- Bespoke outperformance plans and buy-in plans for listed and unlisted entities
- Broad-based employee share ownership plans (ESOPs)
- Restricted equity plans
We offer deep insights into remuneration structures using proprietary models and specialised tools. We evaluate costs, analyse pay gaps, benchmark remuneration, and assess the impact of incentive plans.
- Horizontal pay gap analysis
- Vertical pay gap analysis
- Executive and non-executive directors benchmarking
- Performance metrics analysis
- LTI and STI vesting outcomes
- Financial impact modelling
- Custom reward analytics
We provide expert guidance on structuring incentive schemes ensuring compliance with legislation and tax regulations. Our services include:
- Tax advice on the design and implementation of various incentive structures
- Drafting, support, analysis and implementation of reward-related policies (eg executive contractual arrangements)
- Comprehensive advice on employment policies
- Drafting and reviewing remuneration reports
- Reward provisions complying with the Companies Act, employment equity requirements and other applicable legislation
Recent significant matters include advising:
- African Rainbow Minerals on developing a bespoke template tailored to its divisions and operations, enabling the calculation of pay ratios under the Companies Amendment Act based on both total actual remuneration and total on-target remuneration. The template accounts for complexities such as payroll data annualisation, standard hours, and remuneration nuances, providing a clearer policy analysis and reflection of the pay gap.
- Discovery Group on transitioning from traditional short- and long-term incentive structures to a single incentive plan, combining all existing incentives into a balanced performance-based model. The new structure enhances the employee value proposition, simplifies administration, ensures consistency across business units, and aligns with shareholder and stakeholder objectives while providing employees with annual cash and deferred shares to increase certainty and clarity.
- Johannesburg Stock Exchange on reviewing their total reward management framework, including transitioning from the Hay to the Paterson Grading methodology, conducting job evaluations for over 300 employees, advising on executive and employee remuneration (including short- and long-term incentive schemes), and providing guidance on retention strategies and performance management.
- Letshego Africa Holdings Ltd on the design and implementation of an employee share ownership plan for its Namibian subsidiary, Letshego Holdings (Namibia) Ltd, involving the transfer of 5% of LHN’s issued shares (valued at approximately ZAR 114 million) to a Namibian trust, in compliance with Namibian and Botswana laws and the listings requirements of the BSE and NSX. The transaction, approved with overwhelming shareholder support, addressed regulatory requirements to increase local employee ownership as a condition of LHN’s banking licence.
- Quality Chemical Industries Ltd (Uganda) on redesigning its incentive structures, including transitioning from an ineffective equity-settled long-term incentive plan to a cash-settled unit plan for management, introducing a sponsors’ incentive plan linked to contract margins, and implementing a CEO plan focused on shareholder value creation, ensuring alignment with business performance and liquidity constraints.
Specialist Services
Our core reward services focus on designing and implementing effective reward strategies to attract, retain and motivate top talent. Our expertise includes:
- Remuneration philosophy, strategy and policy design
- Total reward management
- Job analysis, documentation and evaluation
- Total remuneration benchmarking
- Designing pay structures/ developing pay scales
- Performance and talent management strategies
- Foundational benefits
We specialise in creating robust and effective incentive programs that align employee performance with organisational goals. These plans are tailored to meet the unique needs of organisations, ensuring they drive the desired outcomes.
- Short-term incentives (STIs)
- Long-term incentives (LTIs)
- Single incentives
- Bespoke outperformance plans and buy-in plans for listed and unlisted entities
- Broad-based employee share ownership plans (ESOPs)
- Restricted equity plans
We offer deep insights into remuneration structures using proprietary models and specialised tools. We evaluate costs, analyse pay gaps, benchmark remuneration, and assess the impact of incentive plans.
- Horizontal pay gap analysis
- Vertical pay gap analysis
- Executive and non-executive directors benchmarking
- Performance metrics analysis
- LTI and STI vesting outcomes
- Financial impact modelling
- Custom reward analytics
We provide expert guidance on structuring incentive schemes ensuring compliance with legislation and tax regulations. Our services include:
- Tax advice on the design and implementation of various incentive structures
- Drafting, support, analysis and implementation of reward-related policies (eg executive contractual arrangements)
- Comprehensive advice on employment policies
- Drafting and reviewing remuneration reports
- Reward provisions complying with the Companies Act, employment equity requirements and other applicable legislation
Related Expertise

3 Minute Read | Corporate and Commercial, Reward Advisory, Equity Capital Markets, Mergers and Acquisitions, Employment and Benefits, Regulatory Services
South Africa: Companies Act amendments now in force – Remuneration disclosure and approval requirements
Key Contacts
Martin Hopkins
Head of Reward Advisory Services
Lenja Dahms-Jansen
Partner
Norma Mazibuko
Partner



