Ezra Davids | |
|---|---|
| Born | Mziwandile Ezra Clavis Davids 1964 (age 61) |
| Alma mater | University of Cape Town |
| Occupation | Chairman of Bowmans |
Mziwandile Ezra Clavis Davids (born 1964) is a South African mergers and acquisitions lawyer. He is chairman and senior partner at Bowmans.
Davids was born in 1964. [1] [2] He was born and raised in De Aar, a small town in the Karoo, but attended school in Cape Town. [3] As a teenager during the late apartheid period, he was involved in anti-apartheid activism as chairman of the De Aar Youth Congress, an affiliate of the United Democratic Front; he was arrested and detained by security forces for six months in the mid-1980s. [1]
He attended the University of Cape Town, where he completed a BA in 1989 and an LLB in 1992, and he also holds a higher diploma in tax from the University of the Witwatersrand. [4]
After his graduation Davids completed his articles of clerkship at the firm of Bowman Gilfillan in Johannesburg; he spent the remainder of his career in the same office, excepting a secondment to Bowman's London office in the 1990s and a brief hiatus at Linklaters. [1] [5] He became chairman of Bowman's corporate and M&A practice before he was elevated to the firm's deputy chairmanship in March 2021. [6] After the firm's chairman died of COVID-19-related illness later that year, the partnership elected Davids as chairman with effect from 1 October 2021. [7] He retained his prior responsibilities as head of corporate and M&A. [8]
Davids was South African counsel to Bharti Airtel in its abortive $24-billion merger with MTN and also served as an adviser in negotiations towards the $107-billion SABMiller–AB InBev transaction and the $1.7-billion PepsiCo acquisition of Pioneer Foods. [9]
He is a member of the board of South Africa's Legal Resources Centre. [10]
In the aftermath of the MTN–Bharti merger negotiations, [11] Davids was named as South African DealMaker of the Year for 2009. [1] He was named South Africa Lawyer of the Year at the Chambers Africa Awards in January 2022. [12] In his practice area, he is ranked as a "star individual" by Chambers and Partners and as a "market leader" by IFLR. [13] [14]