Leading African law firm Bowmans has appointed prominent tax specialist Mike Benetello as an executive in its Johannesburg Tax Practice, further consolidating its strengths in mining, corporate, M&A and international tax.

Deputy chairperson Ezra Davids says, ‘Over the past few years we have concentrated on expanding our Africa-wide tax practice to meet the growing needs of our clients across the continent. While we have made excellent strides in pursuit of this goal, Mike’s 22 years’ experience in complex taxation matters is another significant gain for our Tax Practice and our clients.’

Benetello joins Bowmans from ENSafrica, where he was tax executive and joint Tax Practice head, focusing mainly on mining tax, corporate tax and international tax. He was previously at auditing firm PwC, where he was Africa head of tax: M&A and Johannesburg head of corporate and international tax.

His professional experience is broad ranging, encompassing corporate restructuring, debt and capital restructures, private equity transactions, dispute resolution, executive share schemes and payroll taxes, international planning and cross-border M&A, tax due diligence, post-deal implementation, banking and finance, and taxation aspects of business rescue.

Benetello, who has also worked at EY and KPMG, is a past chairperson of the National Tax Committee of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA), and a current member of the Corporate Tax and International Tax Committees of the South African Institute of Taxation (SAIT).

He has a BCompt (Hons) degree and a Higher Diploma in Tax Law from the University of Johannesburg (then RAU) and is a registered Chartered Accountant (South Africa).

‘Mike is also passionate about contributing to skills development and has a reputation as a people’s person and mentor. We are delighted that our young, up-and-coming tax practitioners will have the opportunity to learn from a renowned tax expert of his calibre,’ concludes Davids.