Biography: Mergers and Acquisitions

Ezra Davids is the head of the corporate department at Bowman Gilfillan specialising in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, and securities law. Some of the most recent transactions in which Ezra has acted as lead partner include acting as South African counsel to Bharti in its then proposed merger with MTN ($24 billion), advising Verizon Communications in its disposal of its subsidiary, Verizon Business (South Africa), acting as South African Counsel to M1 and Investcom in the latter's acquisition by MTN (US$5.5 billion), advising Barrick Gold Corporation in its disposal of Barrick Gold South Africa (US$1.55 billion) and for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup in the disposal by Polyus (Norilisk) of its entire shareholding in Gold Fields Limited (US$2.02 billion).

Ezra is also the relationship partner for a number of the firm's major clients such as Bharti, Verizon, Barrick Gold Corporation, Nokia, UPS, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, UBS, Eskom and Transnet. He is also a member of the faculty advisory board of the Law School of the University of Cape Town and a member of the board of trustees of the CIDA Empowerment Trust (the fundraising arm of CIDA University, which is an institution focusing on providing tertiary education to disadvantaged students). He is also the former chairman of the recent developments in mergers and acquisitions subcommittee of the business organisations committee of the International Bar Association.

Other Practice Areas

Ezra Davids also features in the following practice areas:

• Corporate Governance
• Mining