Mr Guillermo Morales > Morales & Besa > Santiago, Chile > Lawyer Profile

Morales & Besa‘s six-strong practice routinely advises on complex and innovative capital markets deals. The firm is a counsel of choice for prestigious investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, while on the issuer side, the team acts for prominent domestic corporations on their major capital and debt raising processes; in addition to the capital markets group’s transactional work for underwriters and issuers, it also assists both domestic and global funds and asset managers. The broad corporate finance practice of founding partner Guillermo Morales includes domestic and cross-border capital markets transactions, debt and equity offerings, liability management transactions, IPOs and follow-on offerings; while José Miguel Carvajal has extensive experience in financing companies through the issuances of bonds and commercial paper. Notable growth during 2021 included the elevation of capital markets transactions specialist Andrea Díaz to partner, adding greater capacity to the practice, as well as the recruitment of Gonzalo Pereira from the Financial Market Commission (Chile’s securities, banking and insurance regulator) as a senior associate.

With a client base evidencing a particularly strong orientation towards infrastructure, energy, mining and construction companies, the 15-strong corporate and M&A practice at Morales & Besa routinely advises on both buy-side and sell-side private and public M&A transactions for large, medium-sized and SME clients, including strategic buyers, investment banks and private equity funds. Founding partners Guillermo Morales (whose broad practice covers private acquisition and sale transactions, public tender offers, mergers and restructurings) and Eugenio Besa (a commercial, finance, foreign investment and M&A specialist), are both pillars of the Chilean corporate market. Corporate and commercial expert Michel Diban; Macarena Laso, whose experience includes publicly-listed company mergers; and Álvaro Barriga, who is active in M&A transactions as part of a wider corporate practice, are all also highly-regarded advisors. At associate level, Vicente Valdés is the key figure, advising on M&A, divestitures and restructuring.