Transactional Impact Monitor: Brazil – Vol. 4

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Transactional Impact Monitor: Brazil – Vol. 4

23 June 2020

TTR’s Transactional Impact Monitor (TIM) is a Special Report combining local knowledge and market visibility from top dealmakers developed to address extraordinary situations affecting the macroeconomic stability and M&A outlook in core markets

INDEX
– M&A Outlook
– Private Equity
– Capital Markets
– Handling the Crisis
– Dealmaker Profiles

Three months after Brazil began to implement its patchwork response to the SARS-CoV-2 threat, dealmakers report widely varying levels of confidence in the strength of an economic recovery as the first half of 2020 draws to a close.

Despite the monumental level of public spending, Brazil has not yet been able to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the death toll continues to mount, noted Lefosse Advogados Partner Carlos Mello. 

It’s been three months since Brazilians were encouraged to self-quarantine, some under more strict guidelines than others, depending on the measures deemed appropriate by state governors, who took the health threat more or less seriously, depending on their individual assessment of the risk and their political alignment with President Jair Bolsonaro. 

The authorities allowed many non-essential businesses to continue operating, including industrial production in São Paulo, Mello noted, which could have contributed to a delay in the number of reported Covid-19 cases tapering off.

Social distancing guidelines could be in effect in Brazil until September, and that will naturally create difficulties for the Brazilian market, said Mello, noting the real economy will suffer for a long time. 

We are still in uncharted territory, noted veteran investor and CIO of GOW Capital, João Tourinho, but Brazil is well positioned for a quick rebound thanks to the private savings accumulated over the past four years, that were channeled to corporates seeking capital, whether via the debt or equity capital markets. These savings, he said, have provided unprecedented levels of liquidity to the market, while financial technology has served as an efficient vector, making funding readily available and affordable to credit worthy enterprises. Combined, these factors represent a disruptive force, transforming the way business is carried out in Brazil, Tourinho said.

There is a clear split between the performance of companies that meet the basic needs of society, on the one hand, and those whose products fall under discretionary spending, according to Vinci Partners Head of Financial Advisory Felipe Bittencourt. Consolidation is very likely in those sectors suffering the most, including tourism, aviation, the auto industry, manufacturing and education, Bittencourt said.

Sectors that continue to perform well, meanwhile, include healthcare, services, food, cleaning products, e-commerce and agriculture, Bittencourt said. Deals in these sectors have been proceeding with minimal disruption, he noted.

Vinci closed two transactions following the mid-March lockdown in Brazil, with a third deal reaching an exclusive phase, he said. In the first deal, Vinci was advising a seller of a financial services company, and there was no need to renegotiate terms, he said. In the second deal, Vinci was advising the buyer and the deal value was renegotiated, he added. In the transaction pending close, Vinci is advising the seller in the sale of a construction materials company to a strategic buyer based in the EU. The seller has a specific use in mind for the cash and will exit the business completely, otherwise it wouldn’t have been a good time to sell, he said.

“As advisors we take a conservative approach, we do a lot of technical analysis,” Bittencourt said. “In a period like this, you run different scenarios, the negotiations take a long time.” For those sectors that are suffering, more analysis is required as there’s more risk involved in an acquisition, especially on the buy side, he said. Vinci has other deals underway in the healthcare space, financial services, cleaning products, tourism, automotive and manufacturing, he noted. 

Vinci is fielding calls related to new deal origination that can be split into two groups, Bittencourt said. On the one hand, local companies are studying partnerships, acquisitions and mergers to gain efficiencies and resolve capital structure weaknesses, he said. The economic fallout from measures imposed to mitigate the SARS-CoV-2 threat has accelerated these types of discussions, he said.

On the other hand, Vinci is fielding interest from international investors that have been looking at opportunities in Brazil for a long time and consider the currency depreciation advantageous, he said. “They believe it’s a good time to buy assets here for a decent price,” he said, noting those initiatives represented a confluence of the long-term view of these international investors and a situational opportunity.

All the firm’s non-strategic mandates with international financial sponsors, on the other hand, have been put on ice, he said. “They’ve frozen their operations in Brazil.”

Local private equity players, including Vinci’s own fund manager, remain active, however, he said. Local funds have been looking at opportunistic acquisitions while reviewing their own portfolios throughout the crisis, he said.

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the fourth issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Brazil – Vol. 4.

Transactional Impact Monitor: Andean Region – Vol. 2

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Transactional Impact Monitor: Andean Region – Vol. 2

9 June 2020

TTR’s Transactional Impact Monitor (TIM) is a Special Report combining local knowledge and market visibility from top dealmakers developed to address extraordinary situations affecting the macroeconomic stability and M&A outlook in core markets

INDEX

CHILE
– M&A Outlook
– Handling the Crisis

COLOMBIA
– M&A Outlook
– Handling the Crisis

PERU
– M&A Outlook
– Handling the Crisis

– The View from Milan
– Dealmaker Profiles

CHILE

Nearly a month after Chile tightened the initial restrictions on movement and business activities imposed in mid-March in Santiago, the minister of health announced on 2 June revised figures for the number of active cases under treatment for SARS-CoV-2, resulting in a decrease from 59,100 to 21,325 and an increase in reported recoveries from some 46,000 to just under 86,000. At the same time, health officials announced the deadliest day with 75 deaths attributed to the virus, bringing the total official death toll to just over 1,200 and 114,000 confirmed cases.

The country avoided a total lockdown from the outset by isolating specific districts with tight quarantines based on an aggressive testing program. This strategy allowed much economic activity to carry on uninterrupted, noted DLA Piper Partner Paulo Larrain.

Notwithstanding, there are industries that have been severely affected, Larrain said. “It’s a very bloody process for many.”

The country was still reeling from the social disruption in October 2019, when protests took over the capital calling for a greater focus on programs geared towards reducing persistent income inequality. “These demands are still pending,” Larrain said, noting the plebiscite on social and constitutional reforms has been relegated to October. 

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the third issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Andean Region – Vol. 2

COLOMBIA

As May came to a close, hope for a swift return to a normal life was dashed for Colombians as President Iván Duque extended the period of mandatory self-quarantine through the end of June, while extending the public health emergency through to the end of August. The official death toll in the country attributed to Covid-19 stands at just over 1,000 with some 33,000 confirmed cases.

Under Colombia’s new phase of restrictions imposed to face the SARS-CoV-2 threat, 43 exceptions were granted permitting the reopening of several non-essential businesses, including museums, libraries, malls and hair salons, while limiting those venues to 30% occupancy. Residents of Bogotá remain confined to their homes until 15 June.

The rosy prospects of 3.7% GDP growth projected at the beginning of 2020 have long since faded, replaced by apprehension over the health threat, and increasingly, an economic recession likely to persist for the next several years, Inverlink Managing Partner Mauricio Saldarriaga told TTR. 

“It’s a call to a simpler life,” said Saldarriaga. Inverlink presciently began implementing an internationalization in 2015, joining global boutique investment bank network IMAP and establishing its own footprint across the region. The move paid off, Saldarriaga said, noting the firm grew through several tough years, including 2018, when the presidential election featured a leftist candidate and many investments in the country were put on hold.

Despite Iván Duque’s victory, the following year was much slower than most thought it should be, Saldarriaga said. “People thought that within two months, things would be flying.” When the country finally turned the corner in early 2020 with a robust start to the year such as hadn’t been seen in a long time, with real estate and financial services deals booming, “the little meteor” of SARS-CoV-2 hit, he noted, and the situation changed entirely; many deals were put on hold, frozen. “Some will die, others are in the process of being reactivated, but everybody went into survival mode, to preserve cash.” In general, companies began to focus on reducing costs, “trimming the fat”, Saldarriaga said. 

“Many companies will face difficulties, even those with healthy balance sheets,” he said. Restaurants, hotels, retailers, all commerce has been hit hard, and there are few winners, Saldarriaga said, namely personal care products, household cleaning products and food retail. “That’s about 10% of companies. Then there’s the 60% that have been heavily affected, and the rest that will have difficulty surviving.” 

Colombia will now enter a period of repositioning and restructuring, Saldarriaga said. “We’re in discussions with a lot of providers of capital and getting started with the airlines, construction companies and industrial entities, which were already suffering. This was the final straw. We all know this is temporary, but with an undetermined duration, it’s very difficult to make plans.”

The crisis will cause great difficulty in Colombia and across Latin America over the next 24-to-36 months, he said, noting the region will face a slower recovery owing to the heavy dependence on commodities. “These economies are facing a huge setback, with an enormous impact on the middle class and on spending power. This will be a marathon, not a sprint. Resilience and survival is the name of the game.” 

Colombia’s ambitious 4G program designed to develop the country’s airports, seaports, highways and social infrastructure, was already enduring growing pains Saldarriaga attributed to trying to go “from crawling to running from one day to the next”. The government’s capacity to keep these projects on track and make them a countercyclical engine of growth following this crisis is challenging in the context of the country’s fiscal issues, he said. 

“Infrastructure has become a great lesson in all of this,” he said. The sector was seen as low risk, with low transaction costs, but the these assets are facing a grave impact as tolls evaporate along with traffic through airports, both previously considered predictably stable. It may be a hiccup, Saldarriaga said, and traffic will surely recover, but in the short term, the sector faces a liquidity crunch. “The materialization of risks in the sector will lead to much negotiation with the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI) and a lot of litigation, reclamations and negotiations between the government and concession holders as they hash out how to assign risks in the context force majeure, he said.

“This will be an opportunity for Canadian infrastructure funds, the Brookfields of the world, to recycle capital and keep companies afloat,” Saldarriaga said. Pension funds that have liquidity now can also benefit from the tight situation over the next six-to-12 months in which there will undoubtedly be a lot of distressed M&A and assets that change hands by necessity, he added. “Institutional investors are watching to see how this will play out.”

Colombia’s dependence on oil revenue, which represents nearly 50% of the federal budget, has led to a simultaneous shock that amplifies the economic shock brought about by restrictions imposed to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2, Saldarriaga noted. The oil market is distorted and manipulated, and this dependence will make the recovery more difficult, Saldarriaga said. “It obligates us to seek ways to depend less on raw materials and more on value-added products,” he said. The falling value of the Colombian peso makes labor costs and many products more competitive, Saldarriaga added. “These are countries that don’t just need to bounce back, they need to reinvent themselves and bounce back, and we better do it, because oil is surely not a stable bet for the future.” 

Diversifying its revenues beyond oil is an important goal for Colombia, but it’s rightly a medium-term project, Saldarriaga said, given the country is still heavily dependent on extractive resources to improve the standard of living for its citizens. “If we have natural resource wealth, we need to develop it. In the end, it’s what can bring us all prosperity.” The important contribution of hydropower powering Colombia’s electric grid makes the country unique, Saldarriaga pointed out, and balances out to an extent the dependence on oil for fiscal revenue. While the country has indeed put a growing emphasis on renewable energy development in recent years, incentivizing wind and solar, the debate underway in the US and the EU in which proponents are calling for de-carbonization as an engine of growth out of recession is more a first world dilemma at present, he said.

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the third issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Andean Region – Vol. 2

PERU

On 3 June, the government of Peru extended the country’s health emergency for another three months in the face of the highest death toll in the Andean Region attributed to SARS-CoV-2. The official toll stood at nearly 5,000 with more than 178,000 reported cases. The extension of the declared health emergency is in addition to the state of emergency in place until 30 June.

Peru was among the first countries in the region to implement strict health protocols, ground air travel and impose quarantines and curfews, noted APOYO Finanzas Corporativas Partner Eduardo Campos, “but we were already in a precarious situation”.

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the third issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Andean Region – Vol. 2

The View from Milan

The Special Report has sections on M&A, Private Equity and Handling the Crisis, as well as a first-hand account from Italy in The View From Milan, featuring EY Italy Managing Partner Tax & Law and Mediterranean Region Accounts Leader Stefania Radoccia.

Transactional Impact Monitor: Andean Region – Vol. 2

Transactional Impact Monitor: Spain & Portugal – Vol. 3

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Transactional Impact Monitor: Spain & Portugal – Vol. 3

27 May 2020

TTR’s Transactional Impact Monitor (TIM) is a Special Report combining local knowledge and market visibility from top dealmakers developed to address extraordinary situations affecting the macroeconomic stability and M&A outlook in core markets

INDEX

SPAIN
– M&A Outlook
– Private Equity
– Equity Capital Markets
– Handling the Crisis

PORTUGAL
– M&A Outlook
– Private Equity
– Handling the Crisis

– The View from Milan
– Dealmaker Profiles

SPAIN

As Spain approaches the 10-week mark since the royal decree was issued declaring a state of emergency on 11 March, the country has begun tiptoeing back to normalcy, or what even the government describes as the “new normal”, with a phased approach to the easing of restrictions on business activities and movement. 

In phase one, which began 11 May, family members and friends are permitted to gather in groups of up to 10 persons in homes, open-air restaurants and bars, with a limit set at 50% of the normal maximum occupancy. In phase 2, which had a provisional start date of Monday, 25 May, family members will be permitted to visit their relatives in old age homes, one at a time, provided there are no Covid-19 infections among the residents. The limit on the number of persons permitted to congregate will increase to 15 and patrons will be able to sit inside restaurants and bars for table service. 

Phase 3 will begin on 8 June, at the earliest, pending continued improvement in the health situation, with the government determining the pace of advancement from one phase to the next independently for each autonomous community. Once in phase three, protocols for workers to be reincorporated into the workplace will be implemented and patrons will be permitted to stand in bars once again. Travel beyond the province of residence will only be permitted after 22 June, at the earliest, and only to other regions of Spain that are in the same phase in the resumption of normal business activities.

Things are slightly better now, commented Écija Partner Emilio Prieto. “From the public health perspective, I believe the worst has passed. From an economic standpoint, however, things will be very tough for Spain,” he said.

In the tourism and hospitality industry, for example, which represents nearly 15% of Spain’s GDP, 2020 is a lost year, said Prieto, and 2021 will also be very difficult. “For the restaurant industry, where we have seen a lot of investment in recent years, the blow has obviously been nothing less than colossal,” he said. To make things worse, the new social distancing norms, which will continue to be enforced post-lockdown, will make several businesses simply inoperable, he added. “These are businesses that normally require a minimum occupancy rate of around 80% to remain viable; the owners of these establishments already know this is out of the question,” Prieto said. 

Retail, leisure, hospitality and related sectors are among those suffering most, while deals in the healthcare industry, old age homes and pharmaceuticals, along with financial services, and wealth management, in particular, remain on track, according to Pinsent Masons Partner Antonio Sánchez Montero.

Regardless of what happens, Spaniards will eventually go back to restaurants and bars and those businesses will inevitably bounce back, sooner or later, Prieto said. “We are essentially gregarious people; socializing is in our nature,” he noted.

The new normal will look a lot different where the workplace environment is concerned, however, Prieto said. “The only thing we can be absolutely certain of, in the middle of all this anxiety and confusion, is that remote working is here to stay,” Prieto said. 

“Why should a company pay for a five-story office in the center of Madrid when it can accommodate a portion of its employees in three floors and have the rest working remotely from home?” Prieto said. These remote workers will not only benefit from a much better work-family balance, but the cost savings involved are staggering, Prieto noted. “Some of our international clients are already moving in that direction,” Prieto said. “They have renegotiated rent prices and are now planning to sublet part of their space to other tenants and probably vacate part of the total area at the end of their contracts,” he said. Real estate will, no doubt, suffer as a result, particularly commercial space and corporate offices, Prieto noted. 

Given the continuing uncertainty, it’s impossible to make foolproof macroeconomic projections for the close of 2020, but almost all the indications suggest a fall in GDP of between 7% and 12%, Prieto said. 

“So the question, really, seems to be, will things be very bad or simply disastrous?” The key issue now is whether or not there will be a recovery in 2021, said Prieto. In Spain, a country heavily dependent on consumption to drive the economy, there will be economic sectors that suffer tremendously, he said. 

“The legal field is privileged in that in times of prosperity, transactional work is in great demand, while in times of crisis, litigious work is in great demand. We saw it 10 years ago, and we are seeing it now,” Pinsent Masons Partner Antonio Sánchez Montero noted. 

The impact of force majeure on contracts is keeping legal advisors busy at virtually every firm, he added. “This situation is so different, similar only to the situation in Spain a century ago. Nobody precisely contemplated this in their contracts; they are asking how they can amend terms they’d agreed to under completely different conditions.” Labor advisors also have their hands full amid all the legislative measures implemented to mitigate a sharp rise in unemployment in the aftermath of the lock-down, said Sánchez. 

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the third issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Spain & Portugal – Vol. 3.

PORTUGAL

Portugal too has begun to implement a phased reactivation of the economy, though the shut down was more limited than in Spain from the outset.

We are still mandatorily working from home until the middle of June, said Abreu Advogados Partner Ana Sofia Batista. “We have this ability to adjust,” said Batista of the Portuguese and local businesses that have faced the current crisis with agility. Notwithstanding, the damage hasn’t been averted, only postponed by the government’s efforts to protect workers, tenants and provide liquidity to the market, she said. The moratorium on commercial and non-commercial rent, for example, is not forgiveness, and rents must be repaid in the first month following termination of the state of emergency.

A similar moratorium extends to companies in a borrowing relationship with the country’s commercial banks, which are in better shape than they were when the global economic crisis hit in 2008. “We think this crisis is very different,” said Batista. The impact is asymmetric, she said, noting certain sectors like energy and health were hardly impacted. “And then you have tourism,” she added, noting there were hotels that probably will be sold and groups that will eventually need to be restructured. 

The substantive changes to Portugal’s labor laws and subsequent amendments gave Abreu Advogados a sizeable workload as transactional activity stalled over the past two months, Batista said. “There were very practical issues that needed to be amended and adjusted, which made our work more difficult than it should have been, but it’s natural because legislation was coming out very rapidly,” she explained. 

Abreu has been running a series of webinars to keep its clients and broader business network abreast of all the new legislation being enacted. “Things are changing, not day-by-day, but almost,” she said, adding, “We anticipate that many companies will, naturally, suffer.”

Though Portugal has already begun allowing businesses to resume operations according to a phased approach similar to Spain’s, Batista said she sees a wave of restructurings in the latter part of 2020 as the moratorium providing breathing room to corporate borrowers is lifted and creditors take legal action. Judicial administrators will need to act rapidly in 4Q20 to deal with the backlog, she said.

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the third issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Spain & Portugal – Vol. 3.

The View from Milan

The Special Report has sections on M&A, Private Equity and Handling the Crisis, as well as a first-hand account from Italy in The View From Milan, featuring EY Italy Managing Partner Tax & Law and Mediterranean Region Accounts Leader Stefania Radoccia.

Transactional Impact Monitor: Spain & Portugal – Vol. 3.

Transactional Impact Monitor: Brazil – Vol. 3

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Transactional Impact Monitor: Brazil – Vol. 3

12 May 2020

TTR’s Transactional Impact Monitor (TIM) is a Special Report combining local knowledge and market visibility from top dealmakers developed to address extraordinary situations affecting the macroeconomic stability and M&A outlook in core markets

INDEX
– M&A Outlook
– Private Equity
– Equity Capital Markets
– Handling the Crisis
– Dealmaker Profiles

Seven weeks into the global lockdown, several state governments across Brazil, including Paraná and Santa Catarina, have begun allowing businesses to reopen as the country tiptoes towards normalcy. A phased reopening across the state of São Paulo began on 10 May. 

The official death toll attributed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to mount, meanwhile, surpassing 10,000 in recent days, and along with it pressure against a defiant President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro sacked his health minister in mid-April following weeks of contradicting each other in public over the gravity of the health threat. Two weeks later Bolsonaro’s minister of justice resigned after the president fired the director general of the federal police, resulting in a legal inquiry that has triggered calls for his impeachment among political opponents.

National development bank, BNDES, continues its efforts to provide short-term liquidity to struggling companies, announcing a process to select fund managers to administer BRL 4bn in loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in a tender closing 3 June. News of the tender comes less than a month after the government announced it would make BRL 40bn available to SMEs impacted by the forced closure of “non-essential” businesses in the face of the SARS-CoV-2 threat. To date, only BRL 666m of the BRL 40bn has been approved in payroll support for some 30,000 businesses, according to local press reports.

“We are having similar problems as in the US,” said Spectra Investments Founder Ricardo Kanitz. “The stimulus was given through banks, and instead of going to the companies that need it most, the banks are giving it to their best clients,” he said, noting that the government was now trying fix the process. 

The Ibovespa gained 2.75% in the first week of May, recovering the week’s losses as blue chips pushed the market higher and the US and China struck a conciliatory tone on trade.

Brazil’s transactional market is also beginning to stabilize, with deal volumes down dramatically over 2019, but plenty of activity keeping advisors occupied as they continue to isolate themselves in home offices. 

Madrona Advogados began 2020 full of confidence, its partners convinced it would be another great year based on their robust pipeline of M&A, capital markets and infrastructure projects, said Founding Partner Ricardo Madrona.

The wave of privatizations, concessions and infrastructure projects was generating a strong flow of funds from abroad, he said. The firm was investing in its internal growth to keep up with the growing workload, securing additional office space and hiring, he said. “We never imagined this would come. Although we had information about what was happening in China, we didn’t expect it would have this kind of impact in Brazil.”

The firm didn’t have remote work infrastructure in place and was caught offguard when the most cautious voices in the federal and state governments began issuing stay-at-home guidelines, he said. By the end of March, however, Madrona had secured the hardware and software required to maintain productivity remotely. “We had to adjust very quickly.”

Today, the firm’s staff is completely “connected and inter-connected”, Madrona said, with video conferencing having become the new normal. “It’s crazy, but at the end of the day, we’re seeing we can work remotely.” This new way of working will remain in place to some degree beyond the immediacy of the crisis, he said.

“From a legal perspective, due diligence efforts under these new circumstances aren’t that different,” said Demarest Advogados Partner José Diaz, “Since we are already very much used to the virtual data rooms.” From a technical point of view, on the other hand, there are usually a few problems, Diaz said. “We are frequently involved in agribusiness and forestry deals and there we find several restrictions regarding access. However, in practice those due diligences are still being carried out, regardless of a few obstacles,” he added.

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the third issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Brazil – Vol. 3.

Transactional Impact Monitor: Mexico

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Transactional Impact Monitor: Mexico

30 April 2020

TTR’s Transactional Impact Monitor (TIM) is a Special Report combining local knowledge and market visibility from top dealmakers developed to address extraordinary situations affecting the macroeconomic stability and M&A outlook in core markets

INDEX

– M&A Outlook
– Private Equity
– Equity Capital Markets
– Handling the Crisis
– Dealmaker Profiles

Mexico has taken a somewhat unique approach to combatting the “invisible enemy” of SARS-CoV-2. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, actively downplayed the threat posed by the virus , before reluctantly declaring a public health emergency on Tuesday, 31 March. He then advised non-essential workers to stay home, two weeks after much of the world was already locked down. 

“The government was trying to prevent an economic impact, especially on the informal economy, to avoid a social problem,” explained Galicia Abogados Founding Partner Manuel Galicia. 

More recently, AMLO has used his updates to the nation to rail against government bailouts and predatory neoliberal lending practices that only benefit the rich. Mexico’s private sector, he has maintained, shouldn’t hold its breath for a rescue package. 

“We will face the health crisis and the crisis of neoliberalism with a unique approach, one that will protect the majority, especially those in need, the poorest, that will serve everyone,” the president said in his address to the nation on 28 April.

Mexico’s private sector didn’t wait for a bailout. Those able to telecommute did so beginning in mid-March, though schools and restaurants remained open and many went about their daily business as usual until the beginning of April. “There was a situation in which the private sector was behaving one way, and the government another,” said Galicia. Testing was initially only offered in select government labs, before it was extended to private labs, a similar bottleneck faced in the US, noted Serficor IMAP Partner Gabriel Millán.

The Mexican authorities have since issued several decrees granting emergency powers and extended the 31 March quarantine through the end of May. On 23 April health officials announced plans to manufacture ventilators in Mexico in partnership with private entities acting in solidarity in anticipation of a peak in confirmed cases projected for mid-May. 

“The government has been sending strange signals, leaving many perplexed,” said Millán. The slow and dismissive reaction of the president reduced compliance when the stay-at-home orders were finally issued, Millán said, and images of people filling the streets immediately thereafter demonstrated the poor compliance with to “social distancing”, or “sana distancia” as it’s been promoted in Mexico. 

The launch of a super hero character, “Susana Distancia”, by Mexico’s Secretariat of Health didn’t reverse the relaxed attitude held by many, thanks in large part to AMLO’s insistence on greeting supporters with handshakes and hugs as the rest of the world “sheltered in place”, Millán said. “If that’s how people are behaving in Mexico City, the epicenter of contagion in the country, I can assure you that other parts of the country are heeding official health advisories even less.”

M&A Outlook
… Click here to access the first issue of Transactional Impact Monitor: Mexico