M&A Advisors: White & Case Jumps

BY CHRONICLE STAFF

Three Brazilian law firms topped the list of legal advisors for Latin American M&A's last year, according to Thomson Financial. In fact, Brazilian law firms accounted for nine of the top 25 legal advisers, only slightly behind the United States, which accounted for 13 of the law firms (the remaining three were from Argentina and the United Kingdom).

But Brazil also played a big role in the deals of the U.S. law firms. Take U.S.-based White & Case, which posted the strongest growth among the top 25 legal advisers last year, according to a Latin Business Chronicle analysis of the Thomson data.

"We must have participated in more than half fo the [Brazilian] IPO's last year," says Alexis E. Rovzar, global leader of the Latin American practice at White & Case. "And before the IPO's, we represented some of the issuers in pre-IPO activity."

MORE THAN $5 BILLION

The rank value of M&A deals announced where White & Case was an adviser reached a total of $5.1 billion last year. That represents a whopping 6,940.5 percent increase from 2006, when the firm advised in deals worth $72.8 million, according to our analysis of Thomson data.

"We are very pleased, " Rovzar says. "2007 was a particularly good year for Latin America [and] we project we will be as busy - if not more - this year."

Mattos Filho Veiga Filho Marrey Jr went from second place in 2006 to first place last year, thanks to the value of its deals growing by 146.3 percent to...

Full story

Keywords: Baker Botts, Baker & McKenzie, Barbosa Müssnich & Aragão, Fulbright & Jaworski, Greenberg Traurig, Latham & Watkins, Levy & Salomão, Machado Meyer Sendacz & Opice, Pinheiro Neto Advogados, Simpson Thacher & Bartle, Skadden Arps,