Wildu du Plessis is the head of Baker McKenzie’s Global Africa Practice, leading the office\u2019s banking and finance and restructuring and insolvency practices.<\/p>\n
Du Plessis represents and advises leading domestic and international financial institutions, private equity groups and corporates in connection with a wide range of financing transactions, acquisitions, restructurings, regulatory and general finance matters.<\/p>\n
He has advised on many of the most high profile first-to-market transactions in South Africa including: the first synthetic securitisation; the first asset backed conduit to be established; the first overnight call bond fund to be set up and the first high yield debt to be issued by a South African issuer.<\/p>\n
Du Plessis is a member of the Law Society of the Northern Provinces. He has a bachelor of Civil Law, cum laude, and LL.B., cum laude, from the University of Pretoria. He also has a higher diploma: Tax Law from Rand Afrikaans University.<\/p>\n
On this episode of Business Talk – Owning it with Sage – du Plessis talks host Michael Avery through current M&A activity on the continent – mostly as sectors begin to recover from the effects of Covid-19 pandemic. He says that mergers dropped off dramatically when the pandemic hit, with activity in 2021 off a low base.<\/p>\n
He says activity is likely to be sparked through distressed assets – open to buyers with favourable balance sheets and strong positions in the market looking to increase their risk.<\/p>\n
Some companies would have used the past year to assess their non-core assets – with this type of business evident among a number of listed companies in South Africa.<\/p>\n
The full interview is embedded below. You can find all the Business Talk with Michael Avery interviews here<\/a>.<\/p>\n