Biography: Mergers and Acquisitions

Christo Els is a partner and head of the mergers and acquisition practice group of Webber Wentzel. He is also an elected member of the firm's management board.

Christo specialises in mergers and acquisitions (both cross-border and domestic), stock exchange, capital markets, securities regulation, corporate finance and general commercial law.

He has acted in many of the largest corporate transactions done in South Africa in recent years including the acquisition by Vodafone plc of a controlling interest in, and the subsequent listing of Vodacom Group Limited; the acquisition of a strategic 20% interest by ICBC in Standard Bank of South Africa Limited; the unbundling of the Mondi Group from Anglo American plc and the subsequent listing of Mondi on the London Stock Exchange and the JSE; the unbundling of Discovery Holdings Limited from FirstRand Bank Limited; the take-over of the Edcon Group by Bain Capital; the acquisition of a controlling interest in Absa Bank Limited by Barclays Bank plc; the acquisition of all of the issued shares in VenFin Limited by Vodafone plc, and the Naspers empowerment transactions.

Christo graduated, cum laude, with BCL and LLB degrees from the University of Pretoria, after which he joined Webber Wentzel as a candidate attorney in 1996. He also holds a Masters in tax law, which he received cum laude from the University of South Africa.