Deepa Vallabh

Deepa Vallabh is a Partner in the Johannesburg office, practicing in the firm's Mergers and Acquisitions and Corporate Commercial practice. She has over 23 years' experience in corporate and commercial practice, specializing in domestic and cross-border M&A, corporate reorganizations, and restructurings with a particular focus on cross-border M&A into Africa across sectors including insurance, telecommunications, media, agriculture, manufacturing, mining, private equity, and pharmaceuticals.

Ms. Vallabh has advised on numerous significant transactions, including Multichoice Africa on a group-wide contract review to amend LIBOR references to SOFR, Distell Development Trust on the scheme of arrangement with Heineken B.V., Vumatel and Community Investment Ventures Holdings on their acquisition of up to 49.87% of Herotel, Old Mutual on its disposal of shares in Latin American companies to a value of approximately USD 307.5 billion (an essential step in its managed separation process and LSE delisting), and MultiChoice Africa Holdings B.V. on the restructuring of operations across 42 African jurisdictions to prime the business for its South African listing.

Deepa holds an LLM (Tax), an LLB, and a BSc from the University of the Witwatersrand. She is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa and is fluent in English, Afrikaans, Hindi, and Gujarati. She has been ranked by Chambers Global in Band 4 for Corporate/M&A in South Africa (2024-2026), recognized by Legal 500 as a leading individual for M&A (2022-2024), and shortlisted for the 2024 IFLR Women Dealmakers Hall of Fame.