Executive Consultant
Johan Latsky is an Executive Consultant in our Corporate & Commercial practice. Johan specialises mainly in the fields of securities and exchanges, mergers and acquisitions; as well as financial services regulation, including banking, taxation, structured and project finance.
Johan became a partner of a major Johannesburg law firm in 1985. In 1994 he joined Hofmeyr (now Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr) as Director before leaving to join Gensec Bank in 1998.
Johan re-joined the firm as a Director in 2004, after five years as the General Manager: Special Projects of Gensec Bank (now Sanlam Capital Markets). Until its restructuring, Gensec Bank was an investment bank in the Sanlam Group specialising as a wholesale provider of financial engineering solutions in the capital markets. While at Gensec, Johan was Chairman of the Bank’s Credit Forum as well as the New Deal Committee where new, risky or large financial products and transactions were considered prior to implementation. He is one of the pioneers in establishing debt securitisation and credit derivative techniques in the South African banking sector.
Johan has made significant contributions to the process of transformation in South Africa, particularly in the field of land reform. After the 1994 democratic elections, the ministries of Housing and Land affairs commissioned him to overhaul South Africa’s planning and tenure frameworks in order to expedite development and cut through the apartheid mosaic of former racial zones. This resulted in the adoption of the Development Facilitation Act No 67 of 1996 by Parliament in 1996. He served as a Commissioner on the Development and Planning Commission established by the Minister of Land Affairs under that Act.