What are the most significant cases and transactions that your legal team has recently been involved in?

As Intercorp is a major player in the Peruvian and Latin American M&A market, our team’s core business is related to transactions. We lead and have led, from the purchasing side and from the sale side, game-changing deals which have involved M&A, debt, and capital markets processes. National and international acquisitions of private and public entities in diverse industries such as pharmaceutical, insurance, education, among many others, require us to be versatile, bold, and focused on the details.

The following transactions are the most significant that our team led in the past 2 years – M&A: acquisition of 100% of Makro Supermayorista from SHV Group in a U$ 360m deal in December 2021. This acquisition was financed through a bridge loan from JPMorgan. We were also involved in the acquisition of 100% of Scotiabank’s shares in Izipay, which means that IFS now controls 100% of the company. This was one of the first transactions to pass and be approved in the mandatory merger control process in Peru led by Indecopi.

Concerning debt, we were involved in the refinancing of InRetail Peru´s debt while its subsidiary InRetail Consumer closed a private offering of $600m and PEN 555m in 144A/Reg senior secured notes in the international markets. There was also the refinancing of all of Universidad Tecnológica del Perú’s local debt by closing new loan agreements and a collateral package with Banco de Crédito del Perú and Scotiabank for PEN 750m and the fourth private bond issuance by Colegios Peruano to institutional investors through a securitisation vehicle for $8m.

How do you feel the pandemic has changed the world of work for in-house counsel and the function of the general counsel?

During the first years of the pandemic, in 2020 and 2021, Peru enacted several laws and regulations that sought to adapt the commercial relations and labor conditions of workers.

Peruvian corporations allowed for many of their workers to work from home. This new labor reality brought laws and regulations to address the specifics of providing services in such manner. Certainly, the employer – employee relationships also had to adapt to this new reality where presence was diluted, and supervision of work had to be managed in a new manner.

Some workers are also allowed to work abroad if the service does not require their physical presence to complete their assignments. The pandemic has demonstrated that the relationship between team members had to heavily rely on digital channels to continue providing different kinds of services.

This was not only related to work coordination, but also to motivating our team members. Initially, this generated certain challenges, but over time, virtuality has shown many benefits that have increased efficiency and wellbeing in relation to the quality of our work. The relationship with our internal clients among the different team members of Intercorp Group’s companies had to adapt to the use of digital channels which, in some cases, have proven to be more productive than before the pandemic.

Currently, such meetings can be conducted in a blended format (digital and in-office) which has led to strengthening the loyalty of our different in-house clients. We believe that the use of new communication technologies has allowed us to have a more organised system that allows us to follow up on the different assignments that are distributed among the team members, as well as any personal matters that each member requires.

Such an approach was possible for our team because we measure efficiencies and value generated by our team members based on the outcome, final deliverables, and client satisfaction, instead of prioritising the way such results were achieved.

We are always seeking to be on the forefront of integrating new technologies by comparing with other in house-legal teams, promoting the continuous learning of how these technologies can provide value to our team and increase our productivity, and always experimenting and looking out for innovation.