Big-ticket deals, including Bamburi’s sale of its Uganda subsidiary Hima Cement to a consortium of Sarrai Group and Rwimi Holdings, have retained Kenyan law firms on a newly released global ranking of lawyers.
Chambers and Partners, the London-based research company that ranks law firms globally based on the value of the deals they handled in the past year, shows that Anjarwalla & Khanna advocates and Bowmans have sustained their long-running stranglehold on the multi-billion-shilling corporate legal advisory services business.
The duo maintained its seven-year grip among Kenya’s commercial law firms that occupy the popular Band One of the rankings.
“Bowmans advised Holcim Group on the sale of 100 percent of the shareholding in Hima Cement to Sarrai Group… Anjarwalla & Khanna represented Vodafone in the sale of a 100 percent stake in M-Pesa Holding to Safaricom,” Chambers and Partners said in its newly released report.
Safaricom announced it had completed the full acquisition of M-Pesa Holding Company Limited from its parent firm Vodafone Group PLC in October 2023, finalising a process that had been initiated in April of the same year.
The deal, which saw Safaricom pay the British multinational a token amount of $1, marked the Kenyan telco’s increased control of the major aspects of the mobile money service which was pioneered in Kenya but whose intellectual property had been held by Vodafone.
The Bamburi deal, on the other hand, was completed in March last year after the cement maker offloaded its 70 percent stake in its Ugandan subsidiary Hima Cement to a consortium of Sarrai Group and Rwimi Holding for an estimated $84 million (Sh10.9 billion).
Band Two of the Chambers corporate legal rankings had DLA Piper Africa, Kenya (IKM Advocates), while Band Three had Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (Kieti Law LLP), Dentons Hamilton Harris & Mathews, ENS Africa as well as Kaplan & Stratton.
Investors rely on such ranking to pick law firms for advisory and transaction services.
James Kamau, Managing partner at DLA Piper Africa, Kenya (IKM Advocates), who has previously been ranked in Tier 1 for a number of years, has this year earned recognition of Eminent Practitioner in corporate mergers and acquisitions as well as in projects and energy.
According to Mr Kamau, the directory has taken note of the active role that the firms play in guiding national and international clients in high-value and complex local and cross-border transactions.
“These international accolades not only underscore the ability of Kenyan law firms to compete on a global stage but also show the dynamism in what was once a very traditional industry, now embracing emerging areas of law such as FinTech, Virtual Assets, and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG),” he said.
