Zaheer Cassim

Zaheer is a seasoned investment banker with over 21 years of investment banking experience.

Zaheer remains a Shareholder at Vantage Capital and was a Partner where he spent 8 years. During this time, Zaheer’s primary responsibility was the origination, assessment, structuring, execution and post-transaction monitoring of Vantage’s mezzanine fund investments. In addition to South Africa, Zaheer was responsible for the Mauritius, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana. Zaheer was actively involved in fundraising for two Mezzanine Debt funds of R1,9bn and R4bn and two Renewable Energy Senior Debt Co-Investment funds totalling R5,2bn.

Zaheer’s board experience includes Kwikspace, Austell Laboratories, Pretoria Towers, Kgoro, and Cap Tamarin (Mauritius). Zaheer was also a member of the Audit and Risk committee for Kwikspace and Austell and sat on the Social and Ethics Committee of Kwikspace. Zaheer also managed the York Timbers investment on behalf of Vantage as a lender representative.

Prior to joining Vantage, Zaheer spent 8 years at Standard Bank, where he worked on a variety of medium and large leverage, mezzanine and equity transactions. During this time, Zaheer was instrumental in establishing the Equity and Leveraged Finance team within the commercial bank of Standard Bank, where he went on to Head up the team of 21 investment professionals. Over these 5 years Zaheer was involved in excess of 75 leverage and BEE transactions and was appointed to the Business Bank and Strategic Investments and Alliances executive committees. 

Zaheer subsequently moved into the Acquisition Finance team within the investment bank at Standard Bank. During this time Zaheer focused on the Private Equity sponsors and was involved in transactions in excess of R10bn. These transactions included the likes of Brait, Pepkor and the Titan Group.

Zaheer also spent a year on secondment in the business solutions area focusing on large restructures during the credit crisis. During this time Zaheer was instrumental in the restructures of large listed entities including the likes of Super Group and York Timbers and restructures for PE Sponsors like Capitalworks, RMB Ventures and RMB Corvest. 

Zaheer holds a Bachelor of Commerce with majors in Business Finance, Accounting and Economics from the University of Witwatersrand and an Honours degree in Investment Management from the Rand Afrikaans University.