General counsel | BTG Pactual
Jonathan D Bisgaier
General counsel | BTG Pactual
Formerly a partner with the Latin American-focused corporate finance and private equity practice at at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Jonathan Bisgaier joined Brazilian banking group BTG Pactual in December 2008, since when he has been appointed general counsel and made a member of the board. Observers point to his role as ‘principal legal officer in high-profile acquisitions by the bank, including that of USB’s Brazilian investment banking operations and the acquisition of leading investment banks in Chile and Colombia’. He also ‘spear-headed the multi-billion IPO of BTG two years ago and has been the leading lawyer in numerous ground-breaking financings by the bank around the world’. With extensive experience in investment banking (at Violy, Byorum & Partners Holdings from 1997-2003 and also at Sandler O’Neill & Partners) he has been instrumental in achieving a number of the region’s most significant transactions, such as the Hicks Muse / Cisneros Group’s ‘Ibero American Media Partners’ joint venture, and worked with major Latin American organizations such as Grupo Silvio Santos, Rede Bandeirantes, Jornal do Brasil, Grupo IMSA, and Cemex. Bisgaier joined the bank as ‘one of the first dozen or so members of the company’ and it has been on his watch that ‘it has transformed itself into the largest investment banks in Brazil and one of the most relevant in the world’. Advocates are in no doubt that ‘he has been one of the key players integral to that transformation’: ‘he is one of the best corporate finance lawyers practicing in South America, generous with his colleagues and always promoting the highest standards’.