About

Francisco Brotfeld, legal counsel at Transelec, assumed his current position three years ago after returning from practicing abroad at international law firm Shearman & Sterling in New York. His role within the utilities company focuses on providing legal advice to the vice-presidents of business development and finance. He advises them on the acquisition of transmission assets and the participation in public and private tenders, as well as the financing of said activities through the issuance of debt or other sources. He participated in a process carried out by the Ministry of Energy in 2015 and 2016, which consisted of one of the major amendments to Chilean electricity law in the past 10 years. In 2016, Transelec invested in Perú through the acquisition of Enel’s transmission assets in the country, part of a group of M&A deals in Perú and Chile worth approximately US$100m. In the words of a nominator, ‘we are currently working along with Francisco Brotfield [on these] two transactions, and he has been directly involved in the relevant details, leading not only the internal legal teams, but also the environmental, commercial, tax and labour teams. He has showed to be an experienced, multifaceted and efficient general counsel, who is adding lots of value to the company’. Highly regarded within the Chilean legal market, Brotfeld stands out among his peers for his organisational capacity and leadership in complex processes as well as knowledge of the law and market of the power transmissions industry. Several nominators have highlighted his professionalism, diligence and conscientiousness including former colleagues and external counsels. Brotfeld highlights that, ‘today the company is facing a new era where its strategy has been revised to be open to participate in businesses beyond the power transmission sector, and that brought to our team important challenges in terms of the transactions that we are now starting to look for’. In December, 2018, he helped close a project finance of four regulated projects for an amount of US$370m. A nominator explains that, ‘from our first collaboration I was immediately impressed with Brotfield’s knowledge of the power and transmission industries, and his ability to translate such knowledge into an applicable winning strategy. His superb awareness of the core elements that go into securing and closing transactions have developed tremendously throughout the years, and I suspect will only continue to grow as he fosters his practice’.