Published: February 7, 2012
Dewey & LeBoeuf has tempted a team of lawyers from a local firm to grow its South African business.
Wildu du Plessis and his colleagues have made the jump from local to global markets – while only moving a few streets from where they started.
In January, du Plessis and seven fellow lawyers left Werksmans Attorneys, a South African law firm, to join the nearby Johannesburg office of global firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.
Du Plessis, who headed Werksmans’ banking and finance and capital markets practices, becomes co-managing partner of the office, while colleague Morné van der Merwe, who ran Werksmans’ mining and resources team, becomes co-chair of Dewey & LeBoeuf global natural resources practice. If these sectors grow as quickly as the lawyers expect, they’ll have a busy 2012.
This is a platform alteration
For Du Plessis, joining Dewey & LeBoeuf was a chance to capitalise on an “explosion of interest” in Africa and other emerging markets from the global investment community. Not all law firms in Africa are equally well placed to take advantage of that, he tells EMEA Finance shortly after his team’s move is announced.
“Despite what their marketing might say, South African law firms traditionally don’t have a focus on [the rest of] Africa,” he says. “They are very good at local, domestic work. But if you want to focus more on the growth that we see [elsewhere] in Africa and other emerging markets, you need a different platform.”
Du Plessis hopes his team now has that platform – from its Johannesburg office, opened in 2000, Dewey & LeBoeuf has worked on deals in Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Angola and several other African countries, specialising in Africa’s energy, mining, power, telecoms and infrastructure deals.
“We had the idea that if we combined [Dewey & LeBoeuf’s] track record in Africa with a good domestic team, you would get an offering that gives you international relevance and a local presence in South Africa,” Du Plessis says, adding: “If you can give the same advice from one firm, one team, in more than one jurisdiction, that’s quite a big bonus.”
Also moving to Dewey & LeBoeuf from Werksmans were Chris Moraitis, Astrid Berman, Esmé Ferreira, Amelia Heeger, Muhammed Sader and Mike van Rensburg, who have worked in various areas including banking and financial services, capital markets and securities, corporate finance, project finance, private equity and securitisation law.
Du Plessis expects other lawyers to be enticed to move. “We do need to grow the team,” he says. “We have a very good core team now focusing on mining and resources, banking and finance and capital markets, which are the areas that we think will expand in Africa. If we link that to Dewey’s existing project and infrastructure work, we think it’s exactly the right place to grow from.”
That growth can’t come soon enough. Last year South Africa’s Department of Energy invited proposals from companies to build renewable energy projects that will help the country to face its energy shortages. Some 24 contracts have already been awarded, Du Plessis says, and between Dewey & LeBoeuf’s existing team and he and his colleagues, the Johannesburg office will be working on 11.
“That’s a massive amount of work immediately, on top of which we have a lot of existing matters and clients that we’ve brought across,” Du Plessis says – and that’s just in South Africa. With new ambitions further afield, that workload is only likely to rise.