Clyde & Co has launched in South Africa, opening two offices with a five-lawyer team hired from Linklaters partner firm Webber Wentzel.

The new offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg will be led by the former head of Webber's insurance and legal liability practice Daniel Le Roux. He will be joined by practice partner Rashad Ismail and consultant Warren Hiepner, who will be based in Johannesburg.

Fellow Webber Partners Arthur James and Max Ebrahim will join Clydes' new Cape Town base.

Clydes plans to hire a further 10 lawyers in Johannesburg and three lawyers in Cape Town for the launch.

The offices will initially cover dispute resolution and insurance.

Clydes senior partner James Burns (pictured) said: "Opening offices in South Africa has been on our agenda for the last 18 months. As with all our launches, we look for the ideal combination of a first class team and markets that strongly feature our core sectors.

"South Africa is not only the most developed economy in the continent, but it also provides a strong base for activity across the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.

"The offices will focus on dispute resolution and insurance in the first instance – building on our global capabilities in both of these markets."

Linklaters secured an exclusive alliance with Webber Wentzel in December 2012, which went live last year. The firms have a number of shared clients, including mining group Anglo American, diamond company De Beers, Johannesburg bank Absa Group, telecoms giant Vodafone and a number of other South African and global financial institutions.

Clydes already has two offices in Africa, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Tripoli, Libya.