loucile@caveat

For a long time, grid connection sat relatively far down the list of issues that determined whether a South African energy project was commercially attractive. Developers focused on land, resource, technology, the buyer and the price. Grid connection was obviously important, but it was often approached as a technical workstream that would be resolved as […]

Founders rarely lose value in a sale because the business isn’t good enough. They lose it because the back of house wasn’t ready when the buyer started looking – and by the time it’s fixed, momentum and leverage are gone. Here are the six readiness basics we push founders to sort out early, because they’re

For fund managers and investment teams, the deal rarely stalls because the investment thesis is weak. It stalls because the legal mechanics around it – structuring, documentation, portfolio governance – weren’t built for the pace the fund needs to move at. Here are the six friction points we see most often, and design around, so

When a South African private equity or venture transaction closes, the cap table is usually clear enough: who owns which shares, in what proportion, with what rights. What is less often modelled with precision – and what causes the most significant surprises at the point of exit or partial realisation – is how the proceeds

Most founders think about tax in the context of an exit the way most people think about estate planning: something to address when the moment arrives, with the help of an accountant who can optimise whatever structure exists at the time. The problem with this approach is that the moment an exit becomes real is

Deal teams doing M&A in South Africa are generally well prepared for Competition Commission notification. It is the regulator everyone expects, the one every transaction lawyer raises early, and the one most deal timelines are built around. The regulators that catch teams out are the sector-specific ones – present in a specific transaction, easy to