How a Brazilian law firm plans to attract investors for LatAm projects

The sale of assets in Latin America, mainly in Brazil’s infrastructure, sanitation and mining sectors, is generating strong demand for financing, paving the way for the creation of new funds. 

With that in mind, Brazilian law firm Nelson Wilians Advogados formed a partnership with US investment house Swell Capital to structure funding for multiple projects in the region.

The firms will hold in the coming weeks a virtual roadshow with a limited group of global investment funds to discuss opportunities for financing projects. 

Nelson Wilians partner Marcel Daltro talked with BNamericas about the plan.

 

BNamericas: Can you talk about the task of attracting investments?

Daltro: We have an international development plan where we want to provide more services to Brazilian companies interested in investments abroad, serving more multinationals interested in investing in Brazil and also in the development of new businesses.

Today we already have positions in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Portugal, China and India. 

We’re very active in the area of infrastructure due to the amount of demand from the market. When these projects go through a structuring phase, we reach a point when we must communicate the projects to the financial market.

This partnership we made with Swell Capital is to bring in international investors, as they have a close connection with global investment funds, mainly from the United States and in the Middle East and are funds that look to the infrastructure sector.

BNamericas: What segments and regions are the projects that you seek to structure financing for in?

Daltro: The idea is to join forces with Swell Capital for projects in Brazil and throughout Latin America.

We already have mandates to structure financing for two mining projects in Brazil, one of 2bn reais ([US$350mn] and another of 500mn reais.

In addition, we have a large project in the port area, which requires investments of 4bn reais, which may involve multiple financing mechanisms. [Editor’s note: The interviewee did not provide further details of the projects].

In addition, we already have potential projects underway in the area of sanitation and also in logistics.

We’ve developed projects in Paraguay and Chile, and we want to do more intermediation in projects in these two countries as well.

BNamericas: How will you present your projects to potential investors?

Daltro: We’re going to organize a virtual roadshow and our idea is still to do this roadshow in April.

It’s a very restricted roadshow, for a limited group of global investors and also Brazilian funds.

We want to talk about what’s being offered by the government and, on the other hand, look at what investors are really interested in.

BNamericas: How do you evaluate the international investor's perception regarding Brazil, given the pandemic, and political and economic tensions?

Daltro: I would say that the political scenario is delicate right now and it’s not only about the health issue.

It’s a counter-intuitive scenario, but Brazil is attractive to investors due to the number of projects that have been offered. In addition, there are also other factors that increase the attractiveness of local projects such as the exchange rate [depreciation of the Brazilian real versus the US dollar] and the current [low] level of interest in Brazil and in the world.