About

‘I firmly believe that, in addition to accurately identifying potential exposure to liabilities and to help pre-emptively addressing them, a good in-house counsel should also seek to create value for the company, be that by making it more efficient or by spotting new business opportunities,’ says Julián Razumny, corporate legal manager and advisor to the board at Tapebicuá Group, a subsidiary of the forest industry company Celulosa Argentina. Upon joining the business in 2009, Razumny helped prepare the company for a smooth transition into its current international profile, by means of engaging in more international and cross-border transactions involving the different companies of the group. He says: ‘I assisted the Group in expanding the range of its business by providing tailored counselling with a holistic approach, taking advantage of my past experience with major firms. Rather than sitting in the back seat of any given transaction, I proactively engaged in-house and external counsel teams to maximise the legal input in consonance with the business needs’. Even though his employer is the oldest public company listed on the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, Razumny’s arrival saw the company issue corporate bonds that were never issued before. Razumny, also, deployed a complex capital markets structure for his company that tapped into European and US capital markets. On the transactional front, Razumny has impressed with negotiating the acquisition of new machinery and production lines that were key to the changing profile of the group. ‘We achieved a turnkey production line for tissue paper, the first of its kind in Argentina in the last 25 years,’ he asserts. ‘I was involved in securing the most beneficial legal structure for the financing and the purchase of the new equipment’. Following several waves of regulatory changes in the aftermath of Argentina’s financial crisis of 2001 and the resulting restrictions on economic activity, Razumny and his team have been tasked with ensuring the swift operation of the group. ‘The key to successfully tackling all of these changes was to keep ourselves sharp and constantly updated, attending training sessions or industry meetings in order to anticipate the needs of the Group in said new context. Being able to immediately implement all regulatory changes, while minimising the impact of the lack of legal stability for our business was key to our Group’s success and where I was able to contribute. Having postgraduate degrees in corporate finance was certainly an asset in trying to deliver legally sound and economically adaptive efficient responses’.