About

Heading a multi-award-winning team, ‘truly gifted lawyer’ Pieter Badenhorst is one of South Africa’s most respected in-house counsel, known for his innovative approach. One of the best examples of this was his role in establishing the East African Exchange.

Based in Nigeria, the commodity exchange was the ‘first of its kind’ outside South Africa, designed to promote the efficient trading of agricultural products. In the absence of precedents in the local market, Badenhorst’s team were called upon to draft all legal documentation, covering every aspect of the project.

‘It is very seldom that an in-house legal team can state that not only were they part of something innovative and of strategic importance, but were also the architect of a critical component thereof’, he says.

Badenhorst also led the company’s takeover by AgriGroupe in 2013. The largest foreign direct investment into a South-African agricultural company ever made, it was also the ‘most important transaction in the 90-year-old history of AFGRI’.

The very nature of AFGRI itself presented a unique challenge, when Badenhorst was tasked with setting up its legal and compliance function on his arrival. ‘Operating across so many sectors – food, agricultural, financial services, manufacturing and retail – is challenging but also rewarding’, he says.

‘The opportunity to develop the legal function from scratch also allows you to be the architect of your own success. Africa is going be the next bread basket of the world, so you need its food and agricultural sector to be prepared for this and it’s a massive challenge’.

Six years on, as well as heading legal, compliance, risk and credit, he is an executive board member, a director to the group’s operating company, AFGRI Operations, and chairman of the risk and assurance committee. As all of this suggests, immersion in the business has been central to his approach. ‘The important factors are to a) understand your business and b) be a trusted partner to the business’, he explains.

‘We have to try to be accessible to our specific clients, so that we are the first point of reference and preferred supplier of legal services. Once the business starts realising you add value, they’re more open to approaching you’. Prior to joining the agricultural leader, Badenhorst spent over a decade at what was then Absa, and distinguished himself in his team’s award-winning handling of the Barclays merger.

To this day, Badenhorst says, this remains the largest foreign direct investment in South African banking history. Alongside his other achievements, Badenhorst takes particular pride in his role as a manager.

‘I enjoy recruiting and training young legal talent and developing them to their fullest potential. Some of them have gone on to become general counsels of large listed companies and partners of top 5 commercial law firms. This gives me, personally, great satisfaction and I am very proud of them’.