Pinheiro Neto advises Alpargatas on sale of Topper footwear brand

Pinheiro Neto has advised Argentinian textile company Alpargatas on the sale of a 22.5-per cent stake in the company to Brazilian entrepreneur Carlos Roberto Wizard Martins, and which corresponds to the company’s Topper sports footwear brand for Argentina and the rest of the world. 

The Alpargatas stake purchase is valued at 100 million reais ($24.6 million) and the deal includes the possible disposal of the remaining stock subject to the exercise of the call option provided in the agreement, upon conclusion of the corporate reorganisation of Alpargatas to segregate assets and liabilities not related to the Topper business, according to the Rio de Janeiro-based law firm.

Pinheiro Neto lawyers that led the team counseling Alpargatas were partner Antonio J. M. Morello and senior associate Priscila Gurgel Menezes. The buyer was advised by Tauil & Chequer in association with Mayer Brown.

Alpargatas manufactures the Havaianas sandals and Rueda espadrilles brands, and is the licensed distributor in Latin America of Japanese footwear brand Mizuno. Following the sale of the Topper brand, the Buenos Aires-based company closed its factory in the central Argentinian city of Santa Rosa, making more than 100 workers redundant, and which followed the closure of three other plants earlier this year. 

Fintech seed capital

Pinheiro Neto also advised Brazilian fintech company Zen Finance Tecnologia e Serviço on a 10-per cent stake purchase by German private equity firm Global Founders Capital.

The stake purchase represents a seed capital of 1.38 million reais ($341,713), and Pinheiro Neto’s team was led by partners Bruno Balduccini and Fernando Mirandez Del Nero Gomes, and associates Raphael Palmieri Salomao and Marcelo Junqueira de Mello.

Pinheiro Neto also announced it has broadened its technology and privacy practice with the addition of privacy and public policy professional Marcel Leonardi, who joins the law firm after seven years at Google as public policy and privacy director.

Leonardi has also been a professor at FGVLaw, a major São Paulo law school, since 2005.

“Privacy, cybersecurity and the use and management of data have become critical elements of doing business today,” Raphael de Cunto, senior technology partner at Pinheiro Neto, said. “Marcel’s industry expertise, built from within, will make our ability to approach clients’ needs quite unique,” he said.