Africell's Chief Legal Officer Magase Mogale is awarded In-House Market Maker of The Year at the second IFLR Africa Awards

Africell Group’s Chief Legal Officer has been chosen as In-House Market Maker of The Year at the prestigious IFLR Africa Awards. Magase Mogale saw off fierce competition from several in-house counsel practice leaders across a wide range of business entities in Africa.

Jamie Rayat, awards editor for the IFLR Africa Awards: “Magase Mogale wins the In-House Market Maker of The Year Award thanks to his role on innovative transactions, contribution to market practice and leadership during the awards review period.

While researching this category, IFLR spoke to multiple law firm partners who worked closely with Magase and Africell in the course of complex and ground-breaking deals. They provided extremely positive feedback on Magase's legal knowledge and commercial acumen. Sources also identified his diligent work across several African jurisdictions, where his personal and professional qualities combined to ensure Africell's ambitious business plans could be executed in a legally compliant way.

Magase helped Africell overcome hurdles including juggling multiple jurisdictions and entering new markets, allowing the company to grow its operations during the awards review period. Of particular relevance is his work on the Africell commercial loan facility, a transaction that enabled the mobile network operator to grow its business across Gambia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as expand into Angola.

This accolade is evidence of Magase Mogale's status as one of Africa's pre-eminent in-house lawyers for using innovation to overcome issues faced by businesses in multijurisdictional and complex circumstances. He is the richly deserved inaugural winner of IFLR Africa's In-House Market Maker award."

Commenting on the award, Magase Mogale said: “It is an honour to be recognised by the IFLR. The flipside of operating in a dynamic sector such as telecoms, and in multiple markets across the African continent, is that we must manage a huge amount of legal complexity in order to do business effectively.

Whether it is entering new markets, working towards game-changing new investments, or conducting our daily business to the highest standards of compliance and governance, Africell presents endless of opportunities for fascinating legal work, and this award is testament to that.”

IFLR Editor John Crabb said of the awards: “We are delighted to be able to present the winners of the second annual IFLR Africa Awards, which celebrates the most innovative cross-border transactions in Africa’s markets.

This year, we expanded our coverage to better recognise in-house teams and lawyers, and to include Morocco and Tunisia within the awards. This is part of our commitment to keep developing our coverage of the transactions that are defining the African market and the firms, teams and lawyers behind them. We believe it is important to highlight this work now, as it will shape what is to come next.

There is a great deal of innovation this year in the awards. Lawyers and dealmakers had to think creatively to adapt to extremely challenging market conditions and to best position their organisations for the future. Much of the work recognised in the awards will have a meaningful impact on the ground and on the development of market practice. Congratulations to all those shortlisted and all the winners.” 

For the full list of winners and further details on the IFLR Africa Awards 2021, click here.