Guerrero Olivos counsels Carozzi on acquisition of Unilever assets

Chilean law firm Guerrero Olivos has represented foods company Empresas Carozzi in its acquisition of the total assets of Unilever Chile Limitada and Unilever NV for the manufacturing and sale of ice cream in Chile, while also acquiring the ice cream brands Bresler and Melevi, and the international licence of the trademarks for their use at a local level.

The transaction was valued at $21 million.

The transaction took more than two years to close due to the different positions of the parties and several issues that occurred throughout this period, and each of which had to be negotiated. In addition, the transaction was strongly affected by the social crisis in Chile amid the CO VID-19 pandemic.

Carozzi and Unilever executed a framework agreement for the acquisition of the business, and the closing and final acquisition was subject to the fulfilment of several conditions. 

Guerrero Olivos’ corporate/M&A teams where in charge of the whole transaction, while the firm’s labour, real estate, intellectual property and regulatory teams also worked alongside the corporate group in the due diligence at different stages of the transaction.

Unilever coordinated the negotiation and decision-making process through Baker McKenzie in London.

Guerrero Olivos’ team was led by partners Jorge Delpiano and Macarena Ravinet (pictured), with associates Sebastián Marambio, Matías Ríos and Antonia Namur.

Dellafiori Abogados acted as intellectual property counsel, with partner Enrique Dellafiori, while Unilever was counselled by Baker Mckenzie’s London-based partner David Scott and associate Anthony Pisarski, and Baker Mckenzie’s Chile-based partner León Larraín and associate Cristóbal Larraín.

Unilever’s in-houss counsel in Chile was Barbara Leighton.