About

As general counsel of Corp Group, one of Chile’s major economic holdings, Alvaro Barriga directs an immediate team of three lawyers, but also, depending upon the matter in hand, works with the respective legal teams of constituent business units Corpbanca (20 lawyers); SMU (ten lawyers); and real-estate arm Corp Group Activos Inmobiliarios (five lawyers). He has developed a department in which each lawyer sees the matters they handle through from start to finish, in coordination with the relevant business unit(s); ‘in this way giving us far more effective control of the matter’, facilitating ‘an all-encompassing vision of the effects that one single transaction generates in the entire organization’, and also allowing the outsourcing of those issues that are more standardised. The structure has proved effective, permitting, on one occasion, the successful concurrent closure of deals involving the $300m sale of Corpbanca Venezuela and the $110m acquisition of the hotels, Grand Hyatt (Chile), and Four Seasons (Argentina and Uruguay), in 2006. Other notable transactions on which Barriga has led include the acquisition of supermarket group Unimark, in 2007 (and the subsequent acquisition of some 50 smaller chains, including El Pilar, Deca, Korlaet, Bryc and Casa Rabie), and more recently, Corbanca’s $1.32bn acquisition of Helm Bank in 2013, a deal with regulatory aspects in Panama and the Cayman Islands as well as in Chile and Colombia. ‘Working with him on complex matters is simply a privilege’, notes one law firm partner, ‘he’s very intelligent and his management of case details is simply enviable’. Barriga takes pleasure from having won the trust of the group’s shareholders to allow him to lead the negotiation of deals, thereby enabling him to obtain a complete vision of any given transaction, from design of the corporate and tax structures and all the contractual matters pertaining to the sale/acquisition, through to shareholder agreements and financings. ‘It’s a responsibility I take on with great pride and the utmost care’