The Pivotal Property Fund is a property development company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). Pivotal is part of the Abcon Group, which includes property developer Abland, property, facilities management company Abreal and The Abcon Foundation, a corporate social investment vehicle. Madeleine Truter, general counsel at Abland and legal advisor at Pivotal, leads a legal team that has been commended for both its work on a number of key transactions and for its approach to advising the business.

Pivotal’s legal team assumed the role of project manager on the company’s entry into the Polish market, a deal structured through a share purchase and subscription agreement worth R20bn (£1.1bn), which represented the biggest single offshore investment by a South African property company to date.

Pivotal’s lawyers were also closely involved in concluding a number of high-risk and legally complex transactions with Delta Africa (now Mara Delta), the largest pan-African listed property fund. Truter and the team have also been involved in The Abcon Foundation’s partnership with the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), which helps young people keep themselves safe from HIV/AIDS. By applying for non-profit organisation status and registering as a tax-exempt public benefit organisation, the legal team facilitated the continued work of the Foundation.

More broadly, the team has helped inculcate an ethical culture across the organisation by devising training programmes for business units and educating external counsel on its corporate culture.