Responsible for setting up the Afgri in-house legal team from scratch, Pieter Badenhorst has been a key reason the legal department at the agricultural services company has been recognised by the African legal community as one of the foremost and innovative legal teams on the continent. Taking pride in creating this reputation and overseeing a team that provides a full array of in-house legal services for the group across 13 jurisdictions in sub-Saharan Africa, the UK and Australia, Badenhorst says he is ‘exceptionally proud’ of his team ‘and its accomplishments as it has earned the respect of both the business and our peers’.

In addition to his legal role, Badenhorst was appointed as director of Afgri Operations Limited, the main operating company of the group, a role that has positioned him at board level and made him central to strategic decision making. Prior to his current role Badenhorst spent 11 years at Absa Bank, now a member of the Barclays Group, as a legal counsel where he was a member of the legal work stream that implemented the Barclays/Absa merger.

The transaction represented the largest direct foreign investment in the South African banking history, leading to the team receiving the Barclays Eagle Award for exceptional achievement. A milestone in his career was setting up the Absa Group legal department, an experience that Badenhorst reveals, served him ‘very well’ later in his career.

The accomplishments of his team are a focal part of Badenhorst’s success with one nominator stating; ‘I have always found him to be one of the most innovative and competent GCs around. Over the years he has succeeded in building a very good and loyal legal team that has the same innovative approach to everything they do for the company’. In 2016 Badenhorst was awarded the CEO Recognition Award, this is the highest award to be bestowed by the CEO on an employee and the criteria is for outstanding and extraordinary contributions made by an employee to the Group over an extended period. Independently drafting transaction documentation for a number of large deals, Badenhorst worked on the 2015 Daybreak Poultry transaction with a transaction value of ZAR 1.22bn, a project that involved disposing its entire poultry business and integrated part of its animal feeds business to a BEE Consortium (AFPO Consortium) and the PIC:

‘The transaction represents a landmark transaction for black ownership in the agriculture sector, and has created the first significant black owned enterprise in this sector’. Badenhorst contributed significantly to the 2017 restructuring process to create two separate companies, an agricultural and a foods company, creating an agile and focussed organisational structure, and opportunities for growth enabling the group to attract new capital.