Category: News

 

Peruvian member firm Miranda & Amado announced the appointment of five new partners of the Firm, promoted from different practice areas to consolidate the value proposition of comprehensive service offered to its clients: Fiorella Zumaeta (Regulatory-Competition Area), Luis Alonso Navarro (Disputes Area), Álvaro del Valle (Financial Area), José Luis Velarde (Criminal Area) and Rafael Díaz (Criminal Area). Their appointments will become effective as of January 1, 2022.

With this appointments, Miranda & Amado reaffirms its commitment to young talent, a fundamental pillar of its culture. At the same time, it confirms our commitment to offer top-notch comprehensive advice to clients, drive by knowledge, professionalism and experience.

Fiorella Zumaeta has been a senior associate at Miranda & Amado since 2018. Her professional practice focuses on legal advice on competition matters, with special emphasis on the elimination of bureaucratic barriers, as well as consultin on regulatory and administrative law issues.

Luis Alonso Navarro interned at the Firm and became an associate in 2011. His practice focuses on litigation and arbitration, primarily on representing and advising clients in international and domestic commercial and investment arbitration, complex regulatory disputes, infrastructure projects, construction, corporate disputes and other matters.

Alvaro Del Valle has been an associate at Miranda & Amado since 2010. His professional practice focuses on designing, providing advice on, negotiating and structuring various financing transactions, representing both local and international financial institutions and corporate borrowers or securities issuers. Moreover, Álvaro boasts significant experience in advising investment funds.

José Luis Velarde joined the Firm as counsel in January 2021 to set up the new criminal practice area. His practice focuses on preventive advice on criminal compliance and on the defense in highly complex criminal investigations and litigation, with particular strengths in economic criminal law cases. He has been responsible for advising on and developing systems relating to compliance and the prevention of money laundering and financing of terrorism, as well as anti-corruption systems for corporate clients.

Rafael Díaz also joined Miranda & Amado as counsel in January 2021 to implement the new criminal practice area. He specializes in criminal and criminal procedural matters. His legal practice focuses on the defense of highly complex cases, representing companies and their executives in criminal litigation related to corporate activity and consulting on liability and criminal contingencies.

Peruvian member firm Miranda & Amado announced the promotion of Katherine Torres and María Pía Talavera as Counsels of the firm’s Corporate practice. Both lawyers have an outstanding track record in the firm and currently serve as Senior Associates. Their appointments will be effective as of January 1, 2022.

Katherine and María Pía are qualified to lead highly complex projects and support the management of the relationship with clients following the firm’s values. The high level of service they offer allows them not to only solve legal issues for clients, but also to coordinate the attention they require from other specialties, fulfilling the value proposition of comprehensive service offered by Miranda & Amado.

Katherine Torres focuses her practice in corporate reorganizations and mergers and acquisitions, and in corporate and commercial contracts consulting.

Meanwhile, María Pía Talavera focuses her practice on advising real estate investment funds and real estate developers in the design and execution of real estate deals, and in corporate and commercial contracts consulting.

“These appointments are a well-deserved recognition of the very valuable contribution that Katherine and María Pía brin to the firm and, of course, in particular to the Corporate practice. We are confident that, from their new roles, both will continue to generate value for the firm and its continued dedication to the training of associates and trainees”, said Luis Miranda, Managing Partner of Miranda & Amado.

With these appointments, the Peruvian firm consolidates its Corporate practice, supports the professional growth of talented women in its team and ratifies its commitment to offer comprehensive advice of the highest quality to its clients.

Partners Ignacio Armida and Francisco Glennie analyze the Mexican mergers and acquisitions market in the new reality, in the latest TTR’s DealMaker Q&A.

 

TTR: How would you describe the current situation of the players in the transactional market in Mexico in this “new reality”?

Players in the transactional market have continued to become more and more sophisticated and specialized. Their expectation and need for equally sophisticated and specialized legal advice comes hand in hand and was not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, actually quite the opposite. This makes our work more challenging and forces us to be up-to-speed in terms of what is going on in the market and be more creative and think out of the box when it comes to structuring and coming up with solutions to our clients’ needs.

One sector that has seen increased specialization and sophistication is the venture capital sector, where venture capital funds have been making increasingly large investments in early stage companies and start-ups. This has resulted in a very dynamic and competitive venture capital scene.

We have also seen Mexican players take a more “global” approach with respect to their personnel. It is not unusual to find yourself working for a Mexican company but dealing with executives from all over the world, which as we pointed out before, created more competition and raises the bar in terms of quality.

 

TTR: What are the most relevant drivers for consolidating the M&A market in Mexico and Latin America, over the medium and long term?

We are optimistic that the M&A market in the region will continue to consolidate in the medium and long term, despite the sharp contrasts between countries in the region.

In the case of Mexico, the political uncertainty has undoubtedly affected certain sectors, but in general the M&A markets and players have shown their resilience and remained strong.

Despite the uncertainty, we have seen an increase in the interest of foreign players to invest and acquire Mexican companies. Evidence of this trend is the venture capital sector, which as mentioned above has been very active and is expected to remain that way.

 

TTR: As one of the leading M&A legal advisors in the Mexican market, according to our TTR ranking, How has Mijares, Angoitia, Cortés y Fuentes handled the current crisis in terms of advising clients and What opportunities has the company identified in the past months through the current situation in the country?

We must say that the COVID-19 pandemic did not really affect substantively the way we advise our clients. Throughout 2020 and 2021 we have continued to work seamlessly on all types of M&A transactions, and learned to close some of the most complex deals remotely. People just learned to interact without face-to-face meetings. Of course, certain sectors have seen M&A activity slow down during the pandemic, and others have faced regulatory uncertainty that has driven M&A activity to seek sectors less affected. As a firm, we have been able to adapt to this change in focus and have been able to transition with our clients towards the more active sectors in the market.

 

TTR: In which sectors might international investors find the biggest opportunities in Mexico in 2022? Why?

We see Education, Financial Services, specifically Fintech companies, TMT, and Manufacturing, as some of the sectors which have been more active in terms of M&A activity and which will likely continue to provide the biggest opportunities in 2022.

Likewise, we certainly expect venture capital to continue be very active in Mexico in 2022.

 

TTR: What is the outlook for the Mexican technology sector in 2022? 

The Mexican tech sector is one of the sectors that is exhibiting an upward trajectory in terms of competitiveness and consolidation. We expect to see this trend continue into 2022. Since the adoption of the fintech law, in 2018, a lot of players have sought to enter the market and secure a license to operate as a financial technology institution. These licenses have been issued in the past year and a half. We believe that once the focus of companies shifts from procuring their licenses to growing their business, the sector will start to become more consolidated. We expect to see increased M&A activity in this sector in the coming year.

 

TTR: What will Mijares, Angoitia, Cortés y Fuentes’ main challenges be in terms of M&A deals in Mexico during 2022?

As a service firm in an increasingly competitive market, we believe one of our greatest challenges is to attract the best talent to become part of our team, and to make sure we keep our staff motivated. Having a talented team ensures that clients continue to seek our services for purposes of assisting them in transactions that are only growing in complexity. We see this as a virtuous circle, where the quality of our talent attracts new clients and keeps existing clients satisfied, while the level of transactions we are involved in helps us attract and keep the best and brightest talent out there. Keeping this cycle going is one of the major challenges faced by the firm.

 

Source: TTR Transactional Track Record