A versatile lawyer, Ulrike has significant experience in secured and syndicated lending, structured finance, mezzanine finance, preference share funding transactions, as well as acquisition finance, property finance and leveraged finance (particularly LBOs, both as advisor to senior and mezzanine funders) – both in South Africa and cross-border, in particular into other African countries. Ulrike has also been involved in advising banks and financial institutions on various complicated debt restructuring transactions.

Recent major transactions Ulrike has advised on include advising Alexander Forbes Equity Holdings Pty Ltd (and its subsidiaries) in connection with the reorganisation of its capital structure which involved various share buy-backs, redemptions, debt to equity conversions as well as raising new term debt, revolving credit facilities and preference share funding, with the parties to the transaction being situated in South Africa, England, Canada and the United States.   

Ulrike has significant experience in debt capital markets transactions, with special expertise in advising arrangers and issuers of high yield bonds and secured bond transactions in the South African, other sub-Saharan African and off-shore markets.   

Ulrike also advises on private equity related work. 

Ulrike’s clients value her breadth of experience across different industries, sectors, jurisdictions and funding mechanisms and her ability to provide holistic, commercial advice to her clients.

A selection of Ulrike’s key client experience includes advising:

• On the complex unbundling and restructuring of Imperial Holdings Ltd logistics and motor business and refinancing over ZAR 20 billion of indebtedness. This commercially sensitive transaction demonstrated Ulrike’s skill, valued by clients, of being able to manage multiple work streams and a multi-disciplinary team, from across Bowmans’ practices, in an efficient and strategic manner.
• Multiple financial institutions as lenders’ counsel on the Nampak refinancing transaction. This cross-border transaction, with a deal value in excess of ZAR 4 billion, required innovative funding agreements to be drafted to ensure the various facilities were properly structured and secured, taking into account the cross-border nature of the company.
• Investec Asset Management, Sanlam and Nedbank, Ulrike concluded this two year transaction which required various cross-border facilities and debt restructuring and the management of multiple stakeholders, often with competing interests. This is where Ulrike excels as a lawyer. She is capable of managing multiple stakeholders, over an extended period, with complex and competing rights so effectively, that the transaction succeeded, without dispute.
• Pioneer Foods, on behalf of a syndication of the leading financial institutions, including Old Mutual, in respect of the refinancing of its debt package. The security structures were particularly intricate and the final agreement evidenced the strategic drafting required by this transaction, with a deal value in excess of ZAR 4.5 billion.
• Rand Merchant Bank on the provision of funding to a subsidiary of Remgro, one of South Africa’s top three companies, in respect of the acquisition of a new business. This strategic acquisition by the client of a technology-based business is the nature of most of Ulrike’s mandates from clients. They trust her to assimilate whatever technical information she may need to understand a new sector for a client, so that the transaction agreements protect and serve their commercial interests.
• Investec Asset Management (Pty) Ltd, Sanlam Capital Markets (Pty) Ltd and Nedbank Ltd on the complete restructure of The House of Busby (Pty) Ltd’s (Busby) capital structure and third party debt by among other things, transferring the business and assets of Busby to a new entity, in exchange for that new entity assuming certain of Busby’s obligations.