Iberian Lawyer webinar on M&A market in Spain & Portugal – during and post COVID-19

The event was held fully online and included prestigious in-house and law firm practitioners from Spain and Portugal

On Thursday 8 April at 17:00 CET, Iberian Lawyer had the pleasure of hosting the following webinar: How Spain and Portugal are increasing foreign capital in their deals?

According to data published by Mergermarket, in the first quarter of 2020 deals in Europe dropped 33% from Q1 in 2019. Within this context, the discussion during the webinar focused on the impact of COVID-19 on the Iberian market for all the different players involved.

The event was presented by LC Publishing Group managing editor Ilaria Iaquinta, moderated by Portugal journalist Michael Heron and in partnership with law firms Perez Llorca and VdA.

The audience in attendance online and the following speakers were instrumental in ensuring a vibrant debate and discussion:

– Adeodato Pinto, general counsel, Efacec (pictured centre left)
– Cláudia da Cruz Almeida, partner, VdA Vieira de Almeida (pictured centre)
– Javier Rapallo, head of Corporate Finance Spain, Deutsche Bank (pictured centre right)
– Jose Felipe Gómez de Barreda Tous de Monsalve, general counsel, GLOBALVIA (pictured bottom left)
– Pedro Marques Gama Castro Pereira, partner, Pérez-Llorca (pictured bottom centre)
– Rui de Oliveira Neves, general counsel, Galp (pictured bottom right)

The audience were able to benefit from the view of respected private practice lawyers and GCs representing the Energy, Industrial and Infrastructure sectors, as well as Banking/Financing.

Despite a slow start to 2020, the general consensus was that Portugal and Spain had and will remain open for business, in terms of foreign investors injecting much needed capital into each respective market’s deals. There was a feeling of cautious optimism surrounding which sectors would be driving investment in the future and that a number of foreign funds have deep pockets with sufficient liquidity to take advantage of opportunities and distressed assets, in particular within the Real Estate and Tourism sectors. Everyone was in agreement that Technology companies will be the overall winners in a post-pandemic world.

The full pre-record of the webinar can be viewed here.