South African firm set for rebrand as new alliance partners draw up top team to manage exclusive relationship

Linklaters and South African law firm Webber Wentzel are set to pull together a committee of partner representatives from both firms to co-ordinate the exclusive alliance voted through last Friday (30 November). 

The committee, which will include key sector group heads from both firms, is expected to be decided in time for the alliance's launch in February. 

The alliance, which was confirmed by both firms on 3 December, is not regarded as a precursor to a merger. However, the South African firm will change its branding in the New Year to reflect the alliance and include reference to the Linklaters name. 

Instead, like the firm's existing deal with Australia's Allens (which went live on 1 May), it will take the form of an exclusive referral agreement between the two firms, which already count shared clients such as Anglo American, De Beers, Absa Group, Mondi, Murray & Roberts, Vodafone and a number of South African and global financial institutions. 

Linklaters and Webber Wentzel have also jointly acted on a number of deals together in recent years, including ICBC's acquisition of a controlling interest in Standard Bank of South Africa and Vodafone's acquisition of a controlling interest in Vodacom, the South African mobile operator.christo-els-webber-wentzel-web

The firms this week announced they had worked together on Johannesburg bank Absa Group's £1.3bn purchase of Barclays' Africa operations. The joint team was led by Linklaters corporate partner Charlie Jacobs and Webber Wentzel M&A partner Sarah Adcock, while Norton Rose advised Barclays with a team led by South Africa corporate chief Kevin Cron.

Linklaters' co-head of Africa Andrew Jones – who along with capital markets partner Patrick Sheil was involved in negotiating the alliance under the leadership of Linklaters' Emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa managing partner Sandeep Katwala – cited the existing relationship between the pair as crucial. 

He said: "The key for the success of the alliance is for like-minded practitioners to work well together. What is so good about this is our 20 years of history working together."

The deal gifts Linklaters access to Webber Wentzel's lawyers in Johannesburg and Cape Town, where the firm employs around 750 people. 

Meanwhile, for Webber Wentzel, the opportunities are as much about Africa as Linklaters' global network of more than 2,200 lawyers. 

Christo Els, Webber Wentzel's co-head of M&A, said: "It's a combination of Linklaters' clients saying they need a foothold into Africa, and South African multinationals looking both out of Africa, and particularly into the [wider] continent, which requires the practice of Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone [Portuguese] law."

In contrast to the Allens alliance, which includes two joint ventures, the South African deal does not include any plans for shared investment in either offices or practices. 

Nor does Linklaters have any current plans to open any of its own offices across Africa, with the emphasis instead on using the alliance to leverage work across the continent. 

Jones said: "Africa is a very hard place to pick out top jurisdictions. Obviously, South Africa and Nigeria are the largest economies. But there are a lot of exciting things which aren't necessarily linked to the size of the economy going on in, for example, Kenya, Angola, Gabon, Senegal, Niger and Mozambique. 

"The alliance will not generate any joint ventures at this point. The Allens starting point was different. This is a kind of complementary tie-up providing the missing link between our Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone offices and being on the ground in Southern Africa."

One difficult aspect of the South African firm's decision to team up with Linklaters was knowing it would lose its member status in the Africa Legal Network (ALN). 

Els said: "We agreed with ALN that, following our alliance with Linklaters, Webber Wentzel will become an associate of ALN, instead of being a full member. The alliance between Webber Wentzel and Linklaters is not intended to, nor does it, extend to an alliance between Linklaters and the member firms of ALN."

ALN chairman John Miles said that as an associate member, Webber Wentzel would no longer sit on ALN's board, or have voting rights on financial issues or strategy, though it will remain the network's preferred firm in South Africa. 

Firms in numbers

Linklaters: 2,200 lawyers over 19 countries
Webber Wentzel: 400 lawyers in Cape Town and Johannesburg