Baker McKenzie advises Advent on Prisma purchase
Baker McKenzie acted as legal advisers to US-based private equity firm Advent International Corporation in its acquisition of 51 per cent of the shares in Prisma Medios de Pago, the largest payment and credit card processor in Argentina.
The firm’s Buenos Aires office led the advisory role, with support from New York and Chicago.
The share purchase is valued at $724 million, and were sold by the fourteen most important banks in Argentina, and Visa International, and which will retain the remaining 49 per cent stake in Prisma.
This deal constitutes the first relevant transaction in Argentina since the 2018 crisis, effectively reopening the market of strategic investment coming into the country, Baker McKenzie said.
In addition, it is also the first regulatory driven transaction agreed with the Argentinian anti-trust authority that meets deadline.
The acquisition by Advent was executed through a stock purchase agreement and a stockholders’ agreement, and included the execution of seller notes, promissory notes, a pledge agreement and a trust agreement in order to guarantee the deferred payment.
The leading lawyers advising Advent were partners Vanina Caniza and Gabriel Gomez Giglio, and the team also included partners Gustavo Boruchowicz, Francisco Fernández-Rostello, Mercedes Masjuan, Esteban Rópolo and Geraldine Mirelman, as well as associates Martín Roth, Felipe Graham, Cecilia Máspero, Guido Demarco, Candelaria Munilla, Marcos Sassot, Ayelén León and Ana Paula Gallardo.
