Roberta Gallardo has been a Partner at Arias since 2007. She joined the firm in 1999, joining as an Associate in 2003, with emphasis on the corporate, commercial, contracts, mergers and acquisitions, and competition areas.
Her experience is initially developed in the corporate area, providing advice to national and international companies with a presence in the Central American region, as well as to companies in their operation in El Salvador, attending to their daily legal needs. She has also assisted multinational companies in establishing their businesses or starting operations in the country, accompanying them through the corporate and regulatory processes related to the business. As part of her corporate practice, Roberta has experience providing legal advice on corporate law to companies subject to special regimes such as the International Services Law, as well as in the legal formalization of contracts of various kinds for said companies.
Other areas of practice include mergers and acquisitions and project finance, having been involved in large transactions over the last 20 years. Likewise, her practice includes financing and issuances with complex structuring.
She has coordinated and advised numerous merger and acquisition transactions, analyzed competition aspects related to concentrations, participated in financings, assisted companies in the establishment of their local businesses, as well as in restructuring and shareholder relations.
In addition, she has successfully advised on regulatory authorization processes for transactions in different sectors.
Roberta and her team acted as El Salvador local counsel for Procaps Group in a US$60 million financing by Bancolombia, S.A. and Banco Davivienda, S.A. Procaps, S.A. de C.V., a Salvadoran subsidiary, guaranteed the loan for Colombian borrower Procaps S.A.
Corporación Multi-Inversiones (CMI), a leading food industry player in Central America, has secured a $250 million loan from the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IDB) to boost its operational capacity, working capital, and environmental footprint. Roberta Gallardo and Senior Counsel Ernesto Sanchez, part of her team, served as local counsel to the IDB throughout the complex cross-border transaction. Senior Counsel Ernesto Sánchez in El Salvador, meticulously navigated the legal landscape across four countries as coordinator – El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica (5 entities in El Salvador, 4 entities in Guatemala, 2 entities in Honduras and 3 entities in Costa Rica).
Roberta Gallardo aloong with a regioanl team of experts provided legal advice to Univar Solutions Inc. in the acquisition of the regional chemical company Chemsol in the Central American region. Univar Solutions Inc. is a leading global distributor of chemicals and chemical ingredients, representing a premier portfolio of the world's leading producers. Chemsol, on the other hand, has important companies in Panama and subsidiaries in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.
Our team provided advice to Univar in all stages of the acquisition, from the initial due diligence process, advice on the applicable legal and regulatory aspects required to make the sale, as well as support in the drafting of the transaction documentation and post-closing actions. In addition, we advised Univar in the identification of risks and the coordination of corporate, labour and tax matters essential for the transaction. We also advised the buyer with antitrust assessments.
- Banking
- M&A
- Private equity
- Banking
- Financial services
- Consumer goods and services
- Insurance
- International Bar Association (IBA)
- Bachelor's Degree in Legal Sciences from the Dr. José Matías Delgado University with honorable mention, June 2003.
- Authorized to practice as a Lawyer (2005) and Notary (2014).
- Program of Instruction for Lawyers (PIL) at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 2004.
- Candidate for the Executive MBA-UC Internacional Guatemala Program for the period 2022/2024.
- “Leading Organizations and Change” course taught by MIT Sloan School of Management and Emeritus, June 2020.