Villarino e Ilharreborde Abogados

Villarino E Ilharreborde Abogados (VEI) is a Chilean law firm that focuses its practice on Corporate matters, M&A, Venture Capital and Energy and Natural Resources, providing advice to national and foreign clients, with a strategic and creative approach using a personalized, direct, and innovative style.

VEI provides advisory services that allows it to be fully involved in its clients’ businesses, combining legal advice with participation in commercial, strategic, and management aspects, delivering a complete service to the client, taking the advice far beyond the mere legal scope.

Main Areas of Practice:

Corporate: VEI advises both national and foreign clients in all corporate aspects that arise in the development of their businesses. To this end, we are fully involved in our clients’ respective industries, a characteristic that allows us to understand their needs and anticipate complex situations to which they may be exposed. Our team has more than a decade of experience advising public and private companies, both in their internal corporate affairs and in their relationship with regulators, customers, suppliers, and counterparties. We also advise our clients on corporate governance matters, including compliance programs, prevention models, and all types of internal checks and balances. We currently advise clients in a wide range of industries, such as investment, insurance, pensions, energy, real estate, investment funds, banking, family business, investment banking, agriculture, andfintech, among others.

M&A: VEI's lawyers have broad experience in Merger and Acquisitions transactions, both in Chile and abroad. Our skilled team participates in all stages of the process, including preliminary negotiations, due diligence processes, bids, drafting and negotiation of final contracts and subsequent agreements between partners, as well as the financing stage of the deal. Within such experience, our lawyers have participated in numerous acquisitions of regulated entities, leading the acquisition process and also the obtention of the relevant authorizations from the regulator and the takeover bids in the public market. Furthermore, our team has stood out for its advice to individuals and companies in the structuring and implementation of associations, joint ventures, and other types of SPVs to develop projects alongside third parties, being recognized for its creativity and versatility when seeking solutions for contradictory interests, and conducting complex negotiations.

Venture Capital: We stand out for providing a comprehensive service to entrepreneurs and startups, with flexible working structures that adapt to the reality of the stage these companies are in. In this context, we walk together and advise the entrepreneur since the incorporation of his business to the period of entry of investors in the different modalities of capital raising rounds, whether they are angels investors, seed capital, early-stage investments or the following investments in growth stages, either through convertible debt, shares, SAFEs, KISS or other instruments. Likewise, we advise all types of investors on their entry into these types of companies, mainlyfamily officesand venture capital funds, through the different modalities above mentioned. Such experience allows us to identify the key elements when negotiating the conditions for the entry of new actors to a startup, being able to generate and implement proposals and structures that achieve compatibility and harmonize the conflicting interests and concerns that usually exist in such negotiations.

Real Estate: Our lawyers have extensive experience in real estate matters, advising clients in all stages of the development of real estate projects, including title searches, property acquisition, urban planning and road impact studies, financing, permits, drafting regulations, and sales processes. VEI’s real estate advisory goes from individuals in their personal affairs to big real estate and construction companies in planning and developing their projects. Likewise, in recent years, VEI’s team has been characterized by its advice to real estate investment funds, from their incorporation and corporate governance to the materialization of their projects and investments.

Energy & Natural Rsources: In VEI we advise national and foreign clients in energy matters, going from corporate support to companies in the electricity sector, as well as in their relationship with the regulator, and administrative procedures. Also, our team has an outstanding experience in the acquisition of energy companies, having participated in numerous bidding processes, due diligence, financing structure, and in the negotiation and closing of such contracts. Once the target has been acquired we provide advice to the client in all the contracts necessary for the operation of the company, such as EPC, O&M, TSA, among others.