About

‘We are lawyers devoted to the business, helping to create, generate, strengthen and protect the company,’ says Santiago Sainz de Baranda y Casado, head of the corporate legal unit at Grupo Urbaser, one of Spain’s leaders in waste management. Indeed, the Madrid based team of eight lawyers has significantly influenced Grupo Urbaser with its outstanding transactional work and technical innovation. Operating in close contact with the company CEO, board of directors and senior management, the legal team has closed several high-profile deals that have helped the company cement its position as a leader in Europe’s environmental sector. Recent examples include a syndicated funding of €1.1bn and the award of the tender for Gipuzcoa new incineration plant, with an investment of €600m and its financing. In addition, 2016 saw the team complete Grupo Urbaser’s €2.6bn sale to the Chinese group CNTY, from previous owner ACS Group. Internally, the team has impressed with its work in restructuring and reorganising different divisions within the company. Of particular note is its recent creation of an industrial waste division by means of setting up a distinct group that functions as a subsidiary in the holding. ‘We built up a corporate structure, adding new subsidiaries by acquiring societies,’ Sainz explains. ‘Thanks to the financing from funds and financial entities, the Group’s consolidated structure was optimised. Nowadays, this Group (SERTEGO) is a leading company in Spain and it is also among the first ones in industrial waste treatment within Europe and North Africa’.