South Africa Future Leaders Network (FLN)

Bridgett Majola

Baker & McKenzie

Senior Associate

Bridgett Majola is a senior associate in the Banking & Finance Practice Group in Johannesburg, focusing on general corporate and commercial law, competition law and project finance. Prior to joining the Firm, she was a senior associate at a leading South African firm. Active in the community and industry, Ms. Majola is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, one of Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans 2014, and co-chair of the Future Leaders Network, under the auspices of the International Project Finance Association.

Practice focus

Bridgett focuses her practice on corporate and commercial law, competition law and project finance. She is experienced in the drafting of security, services and facilities agreements, and has advised several clients on debt financing for solar and wind energy plants under the IPP Procurement Programme.

Representative clients, cases or matters

–         Advised The Standard Bank of South Africa, Nedbank Limited, Development Bank of South Africa, Industrial Development Corporation, Public Investment Corporation, Absa Bank Limited, Vantage, in respect of the debt financing of the development, construction, operation and maintenance of a 100MW CSP plant in Upington, Western Cape pursuant to the IPP Procurement Programme. Advised on the negotiation and conclusion of the facility agreement’s and relevant security documents, and managed the conclusion of the condition precedents as second-in-charge to the lead partner on the transaction.

–         Assisted in advising Solar Capital De Aar (Pty) Ltd in respect of the debt financing of the development, construction, operation and maintenance a 75MW solar PV plant in De Aar, Northern Cape pursuant to the IPP Procurement Programme.

–         Advised The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited in respect of the debt financing of the development, construction, operation and maintenance of a wind farm in Couga, Northern Cape pursuant to the IPP Procurement Programme.

–         Advised Slimsun (Pty) Ltd and the Industrial Development Corporation in respect of the debt financing of the development, construction, operation and maintenance of a 5MW solar PV plant in Swartland, Western Cape, pursuant to the IPP Procurement Programme.

–         Advised Sublunary Trading (RF) (Pty) Ltd in respect of the debt financing of the development, construction, operation and maintenance of a 89MW solar PV plant in Upington, Northern Cape Province.

–         Advising a debt sales business unit on the restructuring of certain facilities and attending to the drafting of the relevant facility agreements and security documents.

–         Advising a vehicle management solutions business unit in respect of its agreements relating to its supply of vehicles to various municipalities in South Africa.

–         Prepared a presentation relating to the Consumer Protection Act, and assisted in conducting substantial due diligence investigations and in preparing reports, including but not limited to reports in respect of a 100MW concentrated solar plant, a 75MW solar farm and a 80MW wind farm for and on behalf of lenders for the third bid submission phase of the IPP Procurement Programme.

–         Advising on a company’s restructuring (from purchasing shelf companies, drafting licensing and franchising agreements, shareholders agreements and sale of shares agreements); drafting various commercial agreements such as: shareholder agreements, resolutions and memoranda of incorporation, sale of shares and sale of business agreements, nominee agreements, trust deeds, distributorship agreements, supply agreements, service and restraint agreements, cessions and various closing documents.

–         Prepared competition law presentations, conducting research in respect of various aspects of competition law such as abuse of dominance and various prohibited practices such as price fixing, market allocation and information sharing; conducting competition investigations relating to information sharing (three major cases in South Africa), price fixing and market allocation; defending competition prosecutions. Assisted in advising on the corporate leniency regime applied by the South African competition authorities, preparing marker applications and corporate leniency applications and responding to information requests from the Commission. Prepared merger filings in South Africa and various other jurisdictions throughout Africa such as Botswana, Namibia, Kenya and Tanzania.

Tizi Merafe

ABSA

Associate

Tizi Merafe is currently legal counsel for the corporate and investment banking business within Absa Capital. She is mandated to advise primarily on financing projects in South Africa and across the African continent.

Tizi completed her articles of clerkship in 2010 at Bowman Gilfillan attorneys. After a short period at the auditing firm, KPMG practicing tax law, Tizi returned to Bowman Gilfillan attorneys where she became intricately involved in advising the South African Department of Energy on the third and fourth bid submission phases in the Government’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme.

She has experience in corporate tax, international corporate tax and project finance.

Jabulani Debedu

Grant Thornton

Consultant

Jabulani is a management consultant with public and private sector experience in infrastructure advisory, property, economic development planning, tourism and hospitality.

His experience includes conducting market and financial feasibility studies, financial viability assessments, business case assessments and transaction advisory, economic impact studies, socio-economic impact studies, market research and demand assessments and strategic management consulting assignments.

Jabulani completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in 2007 at the University of the Witwatersrand and his Postgraduate Diploma in Management (Business Administration) at Wits Business School in 2010. After completing his 3-year bachelor’s degree, Jabulani worked as an Analyst for Newsclip Media Monitoring. He joined Grant Thornton in January 2012 as a consultant.

Khanyi Tshabalala

Standard Bank

Project Finance

Mike Webb

Baker & McKenzie

Associate

Mike Webb is an associate in Baker & McKenzie’s Banking & Finance Practice Group in Johannesburg. He has published several articles relating to renewable energy, foreign investment matters and land rights. Mike is a founding member of the Future Leaders Network Committee in South Africa, a subcommittee of the International Project Finance Association.

Practice focus

Mike focuses his practice on project finance, primarily within the energy sector. He advises multinational investors and financial institutions on various components of a project, including corporate structuring, finance, contracting and regulation issues. He has assisted a number of foreign and local investors within the renewable energy and railway sectors of South Africa.

Relevant experience includes:

• Advising the lenders in relation to the project financing of two 75 MW solar PV projects under Round 4 of the REIPPP Programme.
• Advising the lenders in relation to the project financing of a 25 MW biomass facility to be constructed in the Mpumalanga Province. This transaction will be the second biomass project in South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme.
• Advising a sponsor in respect of a coal fired power plant project as part of the coal baseload IPP programme in South Africa.

Prior to joining Baker & McKenzie Mike advised on the following matters:

• Advised Avelar Energy in relation to i) a 10 MW solar PV power plant to be constructed on a mining site in South Africa for private distribution and ii) a 180 kW solar PV rooftop power plant constructed and operated on the rooftop of a publically listed company in South Africa, both projects based on a Corporate PPA structure.
• Represented First Solar in relation to developing and rolling out its solar PV embedded generation projects (C&I strategy) in South Africa; advised the client as EPC contractors in other utility scale projects within sub-Sahara Africa.
• Advised a multinational solar developer in developing its strategy for the Corporate PPA market in South Africa.
• Advised various sponsors and investors, including Avelar Energy, Gestamp Eolica, Pele Green and Elecnor, in the renewable energy procurement program of South Africa, with a total energy output in excess of 200 MW, worth more than $350 million.
• Acted as project counsel to Gestamp Renewables on its respective wind and solar projects in South Africa, which have an accumulative capacity of approximately 100 MW
• Advised the Central Energy Fund (SOC) Limited, a state-owned company, as a shareholder in ENER-G Systems Joburg (Pty) Ltd, a project company that owns a landfill gas-to-electricity project based in Johannesburg.
• Advised Shanduka Energy in its capacity as a shareholder in a 75 MW solar PV power plant in South Africa, as well as borrower to a credit facility that was secured to cover its equity contribution, where lenders were Nedbank and Absa.
• Advised the Central Energy Fund in relation to its potential acquisition of an equity stake in two 100 MW concentrated solar power projects in South Africa.

Paula Evans

Mott MacDonald

Infrastructure Finance, Investment and Risk Advisor

Paula completed her BSC undergrad in Environmental Economics at Rhodes University. Her working career began in the UK as a specialist in Whole Life Cost and Independent Performance Monitoring, advising clients on implementing sustainable solutions within their developments. On return to South Africa Paula gained experience within the Public Private Partnership and Facilities Management sector and has worked on most of the National PPPs.

Paula currently holds a position at Mott MacDonald as a Lender’s Technical Advisor (LTA) on a number of projects in a multiple of sectors, including commercial, government, health and industrial projects.

Paula helped develop a Whole Life Cost and Risk Assessment tool which was successfully rolled out on a number of operational PPP projects globally. In addition she was responsible for an interactive Renewable Technology Database which provides information on sustainable products, including their costs, benefits and limitations regarding the use of renewable technology in developments. This tool has been highly successful in developing Whole Life Cost models to illustrate real paybacks to a number of UK and South African commercial office developers and operators.

Paula has been Project Manager providing either LTA or Technical Due Diligence services, on the following projects:

• Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, South Africa _ LTA
• Department of Environmental Affairs, South Africa _ LTA
• Mamba Cement Plant, South Africa _ LTA
• Busa Hospitals, South Africa _ LTA
• Mamba Tanzania Cement Plant, Tanzania _ LTA
• American Hospital, Nigeria _ LTA
• Islamic Corporation for Development Hospital, Nigeria_ LTA
• Palm Oil Refinery, Mozambique_ Technical Due Diligence
• Women and Obstetrics Unit, Zimbabwe _ Technical Due Diligence
• Insulation Manufacturing, South Africa_ Technical Due Diligence
• Zimbabwe Border Posts, Zimbabwe_ LTA
• Kenyatta University, Kenya _ Technical Advisor
• Plascon, South Africa _ Technical Due Diligence
• Tshwane House, South Africa _ LTA
• Department of Statistics, South Africa_ LTA
• Kilembe Mines, Uganda_ TA

Cebile Mlotsa

Hatch

Junior Structural Engineer - PDG

Cebile Mlotsa graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2014, with a Bsc in Civil Engineering and started working at Hatch in 2015.

Cebile is a junior Structural Engineer in the project delivery group, this is the group responsible for implementing the projects.

In Cebile’s very short time as an engineer, she has mostly worked on design of industrial structures, both steel and concrete. She has worked on bridge design projects.

Cebile works in engineering consulting, which gives her the opportunity to work with numerous clients, and on projects based in different parts of the world.

Cebile is very passionate about people, and the way she assess the value in many of the things she does, is how it impacts the lives of others.

Seitebaleng Ragoleka

Fieldstone Africa

Associate

Seitebaleng has over 6 years of investment banking and project finance experience. She holds a Masters in Finance and Investments from Wits and a BSc in Mathematical Statistics with Honours in Finance from the University of Cape Town. Seitebaleng is currently involved in corporate and project finance advisory at Fieldstone Africa and in the aspects of transactions related to valuations and project management.

Prior to joining Fieldstone, Seitebaleng gained her investment banking experience working at Rothschild where she was involved in project management execution of M&A, strategic advisory and capital markets mandates, financial modelling, performing company valuations and research activities. She has also previously worked  at the Public Investment Corporation in the Economic Infrastructure team as a transactor.