Lerato Thahane is a partner in our Johannesburg office’s Corporate Department and a member of the Mergers and Acquisitions practice.

Lerato has advised private and public companies on a number of domestic and cross border acquisitions and disposals, empowerment transactions, general corporate matters, commercial matters, group restructurings and unbundling of shareholdings.

She joined Bowmans in 2011. Between 2018 and 2019 she practiced at the Munich office of international law firm, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer where she advised on both mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions.

Lerato holds an LLB degree and a Certificate in Advanced Company Law from the University of the Witwatersrand. She also has a Notarial Practice and Conveyancing Certificate from the Centre for Conveyancing Practice.

Lerato is short listed in 2021 as The African Legal Awards Partner of the Year. She is also listed as one of the Mail & Guardian top 200 Young South Africans to look out for in 2021.

Relevant Experience

Lerato has recently advised:

• Lanxess Proprietary Limited (along with its parent company, Lanxess Deutschland GmbH) on the disposal of its 74% shareholding in its South African chrome ore mining company to Chrome Production Holdings (a supplier of chrome fine ores), and on the sale of its chrome chemicals business to Brother Enterprises in China.
• Maersk A/S, in relation to its acquisition of Senator International Spedition GmbH and Senator International Holding, LLC for an enterprise value of approximately USD 644 million.
• PepsiCo on its acquisition of Pioneer Foods, which was named deal of the year by DealMakers 2020 in South Africa. Valued at approximately USD 1.7 billion, the acquisition was one of PepsiCo’s largest outside the United States.
• Allianz X GmbH’s acquisition of 100% of the share capital of Innovation Group Holdings Limited, a leading global provider of claims and technology solutions to the insurance and automotive industries.
• Advent International on the South Africa aspects of its acquisition of the operations of Evonik Industries AG’s methacrylate business for EUR 3 billion.
• a multinational mining company on a transaction involving the proposed acquisition of an equity interest in certain South African chrome mines.
• Tata Communications in respect of the ZAR 7 billion disposal of Neotel to the Vodacom Group, and the subsequent sale of Neotel to Liquid Telecommunications and Royal Bafokeng Holdings.
• Affiliated Managers Group, Inc., in its acquisition of a minority interest in Abax Investments Proprietary Limited.
• Puma Energy and Trafigura in its acquisition of various retail focused petroleum businesses, across South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
• A London Stock Exchange listed mining company in relation to a restructuring of its African mining companies.
• A leading glass manufacturing company on its proposed acquisition of a controlling interest in a South African business.
•  

Awards

• Lerato was recognised in Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans in the Justice and Law category.

• Stricter reporting and enforcement on local empowerment in Africa
• National interest is now a key driver for empowerment regulation across Africa
• Untraceable shareholders could lose all claim to their shares