Ian Kirkman

Ian Kirkman is a Partner in the Corporate/M&A Practice at Bowmans in Johannesburg, specialising in mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets, and corporate finance. He advises domestic and international clients across a broad range of sectors, including consumer goods, financial services, and industrial goods and services, with experience spanning public and private M&A, cross‑border deals, joint ventures, and black economic empowerment transactions.

Ian has advised on significant transactions including The Coca‑Cola Company on the sale of a 75% controlling interest in Coca‑Cola Beverages Africa to Coca‑Cola HBC AG (equity value of USD 3.4 billion); a consortium of investors on its acquisition of Barloworld (transaction value of ZAR 23 billion); Teck Resources on its merger of equals with Anglo American (estimated transaction value of USD 50 billion); Sanlam on its ZAR 6.5 billion acquisition of Assupol; Royal Bafokeng Platinum in a contested bid for its control; Isanti Glass on its ZAR 1.5 billion acquisition of Nampak Glass (Dealmakers BEE Deal of the Year, 2019); and Nampak on its asset disposal programme. In the equity capital markets space, he has advised Supermarket Income REIT on its secondary listing on the JSE, Standard Bank and Nedbank on Nampak's ZAR 1 billion rights offer, and Dis‑Chem and Capital Appreciation on their JSE listings.

Ian holds a BCom and an LL.B from the University of the Witwatersrand. He is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa and has worked across multiple jurisdictions including South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, eSwatini, and Kenya.