Investors target the Spanish tech, construction and transport sectors – Araoz & Rueda

A growing appetite for corporate and private equity investment in Spain is generating significant opportunities for the country’s lawyers, particularly in the tech, construction and transport sectors, says Pedro Rueda, founding partner of Araoz & Rueda.

“There is plenty of money and a growing volume of deals involving a variety of targets,” says Rueda. “What we are seeing is that the biotech and tech industries are driving and attracting many investments – we also have a number of deals involving construction materials companies.”
One of the key drivers for renewed investment in transport and logistics is the growth of online sales. “Not only retailers, but also wholesalers, are enhancing their business-to-business sales, and that is having a huge impact on the transport sector,” says Araoz & Rueda partner Israel de Diego. The increase in investment is also being fuelled by cheap debt, not just from traditional sources such as major banks, but also from alternative lenders. “There is a tremendous opportunity to obtain quite inexpensive finance for transactions,” Rueda says. “More and more frequently, we are involved in acquisitions involving alternative providers of finance – it’s not to say that banks are no longer lending, but the fact is that the debt funds are more flexible and agile.”
The challenge for law firms is to ensure they have enough capacity to handle the work without expanding too aggressively. “Rather than immediately increasing our size, as we may have done in the past, everyone is more cautious,” Rueda says. “You try to become more efficient, so we’re implementing as many tech and digital tools as we can.” He adds: “This allows us to return to the client much faster and with greater reliability, and helps us cope with much more work while remaining the same size.”