About

Based in Brazil, Osvaldo Grossi is Latin American regional general counsel for HSBC Bank. He manages a sizeable team of over 300, including 186 lawyers, spread across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay. He has steadily developed his career in the banking sector since early, non legal, experience working at Bradesco, since when he has held legal roles at Chase Manhattan during the 1980s (first in Rio and subsequently Sao Paulo), then at Santander subsidiary, Cresiful, at Citibank, and then Banco Santander. This has necessarily involved him in numerous high-profile transactions, not least the acquisitions of Banco Noroeste, Banco Meridional and Banco Bozzano by Santander; and those of Losango (Paraguay), and Banco Lloyds and Bank of America (Brazil), on behalf of HSBC. More recently he has handled the latter’s disposal of its holdings in Central America (Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and Panama) as well as those in Peru and Paraguay. ‘Top flight, without doubt’, according to admirers, he ‘enjoys the advisory side of his role and working as a team to overcome professional challenges’. Moreover, it was his ‘transformation of a fragmented legal area into a strong, centralised legal department with standard controls, cost reductions and higher level consistency’ that has facilitated such transactional success. Currently managing the latter phases of HSBC’s divestment program (in Colombia and Uruguay), insiders talk of ‘a lawyer of great capability and very clear business vision but one who at the same time leaves space for his external lawyers to act as they see fit and to retain some autonomy’ and who ‘can delegate with confidence since he builds teams efficiently’.