Miami Advisory Boutique Opens in Madrid
Atlantico Capital, a Miami-headquartered investment banking boutique with a focus on infrastructure, energy and renewables in Latin America, is set to open its first European office in Spain.
Managing Partner Miguel Bermejo (pictured) told Infralogic he will relocate from Miami to Madrid to launch the new office in September, to drum up business from European clients and help Latin American companies invest in Europe.
“We want to boost our origination capabilities with Spanish and European clients interested in deals in Latin America and the US; [and] we want to identify opportunities for Latin American clients looking to invest in Spain and Europe,” he said.
Bermejo, a Spanish national, is a former executive at the Spanish construction and infrastructure group FCC, where he worked as finance director for the Americas and previously as head of special projects on M&A and project finance.
He set up Atlantico Capital in 2015 together with fellow partners Fernando Casas, a former banker at Citigroup and ABN Amro, and Xavier Ruiz, a lawyer.
The firm in 2021 hired its fourth partner, Ivan Oliveros, formerly an energy and infrastructure-focused managing director at Jefferies and SMBC.
Atlantico Capital is a generalist investment bank advising on M&A structured finance, and project finance, although Bermejo said more than half of the 30 deals it has closed in the past five years have been in the infrastructure and energy markets.
The firm has been focusing on Latin America up to now, and worked on some US deals with Latin American or Spanish angles, but also aims to “work on transactions in Spain and other European countries together with our partner firms across Europe”, added Bermejo.
Atlantico has set up a network with other independent advisory firms of ex-ABN Amro bankers called MAP Alliance, with which it works on some cross-border deals. These include CASE Corporate Finance in France and Germany, Cassiopea in Italy and Metis in Brazil among others.
Together with CASE, it recently advised French water utility Saur, which is backed by EQT Infrastructure, on its exit from Colombia.
Its European clients also include DIF-backed solar developer IB Vogt, with which it is currently working on M&A and project finance deals in Latin America, and MPC Energy Solutions, which it is advising on a deal in Colombia.
Atlantico Capital recently advised Spanish hospital developer, IBT Health, on the tender for the Piura and Chimbote hospital PPPs in Peru and is currently working on the structuring of project finance for the schemes and the possible addition of financial partners into the consortium.
