About

A ‘national derivatives expert’, Shawn Barnett has built up two in-house legal departments from scratch, and been involved in some of the jurisdiction’s most significant transactions.

‘I helped launch probably the biggest two development income funds’, he says. ‘We’ve worked on what are probably some of the biggest Black Economic Empowerment transactions. We are also handling one of the biggest early stage coal transactions. We have done a number of interesting things’.

Barnett developed his niche at Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa (incorporated as Deneys Reitz Inc), which counted ISDA as a major client, at a time when the product was ‘really starting to find its place in South Africa’.

He was approached by Macquarie Group to establish its South African presence and went on to structure two of the market’s largest stage dividend income funds. ‘I found the idea of having more time to focus on projects quite appealing – that was the essential reason for it’, he says of the move in-house.

‘The opportunity to get more involved in the business side of things was also quite appealing’. In both of his in-house roles, he has made it his strategy to keep a lot of work in-house. ‘You are more entrenched in these matters than the external lawyers will ever be, so you are better placed to do the drafting’.