A marriage that shows its worth

One of South Africa’s largest law firms, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr, is a national, full-service practice, with more than 130 directors (partners) and some 280 lawyers, located in offices in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa’s key financial centres, with a pretty even split between the two cities.

The firm’s roots go right back to 1853 and since then it has evolved and grown through a series of mergers.

In 2005, Cliffe Dekker, as it was then, became a member of DLA Piper Group and so became the first South African law firm to enter into an exclusive relationship with a global legal practice.

DLA Piper Group is part of DLA Piper, which is among the largest legal services organisations in the world, meaning that Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr can introduce its clients to lawyers in more than 25 different countries. DLA Piper is the only legal services provider to have more than 2,500 lawyers working on the two sides of the Atlantic. With a total of 3,700 lawyers globally, working in 65 countries throughout Asia, Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa, DLA Piper offers a truly worldwide spread of first∞rate legal advice.

The most recent milestone in the firm’s continued development has been the combining of Cliffe Dekker and Hofmeyr Herbstein & Gihwala, two of South Africa’s leading corporate law firms, which took place on September 1st, 2008.

Announcing the deal, Dines Gihwala, Chairman of the new entity, commented: “I am truly excited about the future of Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. This combination is the product of two firms of similar size, with almost identical cultures, values and solid reputations.

“My colleagues and I anticipate taking full advantage of a culture that truly binds and builds in order to offer a first-rate legal outfit with the critical mass and depth of skills to continue adding value and providing a competitive edge for our clients.”

Added CEO Chris Ewing: “With the merger now fully effective, we are ready to entrench ourselves as the business law firm of choice in South Africa, offering a complete solution to our clients’ legal needs.

“Addressing the skills challenge and transformation imperatives remain top priorities. We will strive to continue being the employer of choice for both aspiring and already established practitioners and are intent on offering an attractive environment for the best talent in the industry to develop and grow.

“Our clients and our people are at the heart of everything we do around here, our aim is to offer a service that provides access to in-depth skills, supported by the capacity to meet the challenges and requirements of our clients, whatever their size and wherever they may be, without compromising the highest possible level of service.”
 
Comprehensive and coordinated
With the combined capabilities of two top-tier corporate law firms, the new Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr entity has the capacity to provide a comprehensive and fully co-ordinated range of business legal services to clients whose needs are local, national or international in scope.

The firm has one of the largest corporate M&A and commercial practice teams in South Africa, with more than 70 qualified lawyers, who work closely with other practice groups across the firm to cover such issues as competition, employment, pensions, tax and regulation and the firm uses its formidable global resources on international aspects of cross-border transactions.

The two legacy firms have long been recognised as champions of transformation and empowerment in the legal profession and, post-merger, some 30 percent of the firm’s shares are held by black directors, with some 24 percent being held by women.

Says Ian Hayes, National Head of the firm’s corporate and commercial practice: “Today we offer the full range of business legal services, with a principal focus on corporate and commercial law and working in 10 core areas: corporate and commercial, including intellectual property, competition, dispute resolution; litigation and arbitration, employment and labour issues, environment; finance, projects and banking; real estate, tax, technology, media and telecommunications, and trusts and estates. “We also have niche practices that focus on the specific requirements of a number of industry sectors, including aviation, banking, energy, financial services, healthcare, hotel and leisure, infrastructure and PPPs, telecoms, media, manufacturing, mining, outsourcing and liquor.

“Our business has grown substantially in recent years, driven by our clients’ considerable investment and expansion initiatives, not only in this country but across the African continent and beyond.

Diverse projects
“DLA Piper’s capability in Africa is unrivalled in terms of geographic coverage. Our lawyers on this continent have extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, foreign direct investment, finance and telecommunications. Together with other DLA Piper Africa Group lawyers, our firm has worked on a number of very diverse projects, including a listing in Zambia, a mining project in Tanzania, a shopping centre in Angola and a shipping transaction in Mozambique.

“As the pivot of the continent, South Africa is an interesting place to be working in at this time. The global slow-down is having its effect, of course, but there are also changing local conditions to be accounted for.

“Whilst our banks generally appear to have only limited exposure to toxic debt – thanks to the restrictions imposed on them by the South African exchange control authorities – the economic crisis is nevertheless affecting them adversely because of the reluctance of European and American banks to lend to developing countries in the current circumstances.

“This is unfortunately slowing down the pace of black economic empowerment (BEE) in this country because funding is now in very short supply and is extremely expensive. “However, BEE transactions do continue to take place because of the legislative and strategic imperatives that drive these transactions.

“At this stage, the government has not taken any active steps to assist South African business in weathering the current economic storm. However, it will probably need to act soon as it is clear that the country will have difficulty in meeting  the forecast growth rates and there must be a real possibility of considerable job losses, especially if bankruptcies result because of the banks’ refusal to provide funding in the ordinary course.

“In the short term, South Africa faces a number of difficulties, most of which are not of its own making and are rather the result of the global crisis that is embroiling us all. However, the medium and long-term outlook for South Africa and the rest of this continent is, I believe, extremely bright, with high growth rates still being predicted in the long term.

“There is an increasingly potent Pan-African, and beyond that, global trend in the way things are developing here. This is what makes our association with DLA Piper of such importance.

“As things are playing out, it is becoming clear with regard to our merger that the combination of these two vibrant entities into a single unit has created a depth of skills that offers our clients service which is of an exceptionally high quality. The merger enables us to offer ever-higher levels of specialist knowledge and experience for the benefit of our clients while the international dimension provided by our DLA Piper connection gives them a window on the world.

“The merger also enables us to expand our in-house training facilities and concentrate greater resources in the marketing arena. It’s an exciting place to be.”