A global M&A boom in South America's largest economy has sparked demand for new legal services. Claudia Farkouh Prado reports

In the last decade we have seen a huge change in the size of deals coming out of Latin America. Just 10 years ago corporate and M&A lawyers rarely saw deals worth more than $100m (£61.5m), and the clients were typically US or European companies drawn to investments in Brazil's rich natural resources.

Nowadays, it is a very different story. The deals are bigger – much bigger – and there are waves of investment from the Middle East and from emerging economies like China and India. It's not uncommon to see a new multibillion-dollar deal announced every week.

But the real shift for Brazil, the eighth-largest economy in the world, with a population of 194 million, is that more Brazilian companies are entering the global market. Bolstered by political and economic stability, the strong real, government incentives and easy access to capital, even Brazilian companies beyond the big names of Petrobras, Vale and Embraer are expanding beyond the border.

After decades of relying on foreign investors for capital, technology and innovation, Brazilian companies are emerging as major players on the international M&A scene. In the past two years, the amount that Brazilian companies have invested abroad has nearly doubled each year, according to the Central Bank of Brazil.

In the first half of 2010, for example, Brazilian companies spent $22bn (£13.5bn) buying foreign businesses – more than double the $9.3bn (£5.7bn) foreign investors spent on Brazilian acquisitions, according to ANBIMA, a Brazilian association of financial and capital market firms.

As a result, the work of transactional lawyers in Brazil has dramatically changed. Brazilian companies now need legal counsel who not only know the local market, but have the international knowledge to advise on doing business overseas. As it is a new era for Brazilian companies, it is also a new era for Brazilian law firms.

What clients want

In a 2009 study on what Brazilian in-house counsel look for when hiring outside law firms, the top five criteria were legal knowledge, availability, experience in specific sectors, reputation and creative solutions. The study, conducted by LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell in association with Brazilian law firm Goncalves & Goncalves, also found that most Brazilian corporates' legal departments choose their outside counsel based on recommendations from other companies, law firms, their board of directors and legal networks.

This is important feedback for all Brazilian law firms. Yet given the rapid multinationalisation of Brazilian companies over the past five years, it's only part of the picture. Brazilian companies are also seeking lawyers with the international knowledge and experience to help them succeed in other markets.

One of the most common concerns we hear from corporate counsel in the country about cross-border deals is how to manage risk and find efficiencies. Unlike US and European multinationals that have been operating in the global arena for decades, Brazilian multinationals are new to the game.

To be successful, Brazilian companies need advisers who have the international experience and global network to help them navigate new markets with ease. They want lawyers who already know how to operate in both developing and emerging markets and can save them time and money by finding practical solutions as issues arise.

Helping Brazilian companies avoid the pitfalls of overseas expansion requires more than knowing the applicable laws. It requires understanding each jurisdiction's culture and commercial practices to help clients avoid missteps that could jeopardise their reputations and investments. It also takes having the right business and government connections in the target market.

As the transactions become increasingly sophisticated, Brazilian clients need lawyers who know how to manage deals that span multiple jurisdictions and involve numerous parties with competing interests. Skillfully addressing issues such as tax structuring, project financing, workforce management, dispute resolution and corporate compliance has become crucial given the size of the businesses involved and the scale of potential gains and loses.

Priorities and ambitions

In 2008, our firm advised Vale, Brazil's largest mining company, on the tax and financing aspects of its $18bn (£11bn) acquisition of Toronto-based Inco, the world's second-largest nickel producer.

The same year, we represented Perdigao Agroindustrial on its acquisition of Dutch pork and poultry processor Plusfood Groep. Most recently, we advised Petrobras on its international tender to select companies to build 28 deepwater drilling rigs.

As these transactions show, Brazil's largest corporations are already adept at closing big deals and operating in regions around the globe. Yet the average Brazilian company is sticking closer to home, with most expanding within Latin America due to proximity and similarities in language and culture.

Unlike the global buying spree of Chinese companies, the acquisitions made by Brazilian companies are not as driven by a need to make up for domestic deficiencies in raw materials. With Brazil's abundant natural resources and commodities, Brazilian companies have a simple focus – to become more profitable by acquiring greater market share.

One example is Instituto Brasileiro de Opiniao Publica e Estatistica (IBOPE), a local company that Brazilians know for conducting the country's political polls. In the last decade, IBOPE has quietly transformed into the largest market research firm in Latin America, with offices in 14 countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Beyond Latin America, some Brazilian companies are making inroads into Portuguese-speaking African countries like Mozambique and Angola, competing with companies from China and India to capitalise on the continent's vast oil, gas and mining resources. Others are moving into Europe.

But for the most part, Brazilian companies are focusing their investments on other emerging markets. After decades of financial crisis, Brazilian business owners and executives have learned a few lessons about how to weather the challenges that come with operating in an emerging economy. Because of Brazil's own volatile economic history, they are often more comfortable assuming risk than companies in developed countries.

Coming from behind

Until the 1990s, Brazilian companies were fairly isolated from international competition. The Government imposed strict trade and foreign investment policies for fear that opening Brazil to global business would drain jobs and capital from the country.

As a result, Brazilian companies lag decades behind countries like the US and the UK, which both began rapidly expanding across borders in the 1940s. Even China, whose economy was closed to the outside world for years, announced its commitment to promote the internationalisation of its economy in 1979.

In Brazil, public policies to encourage internationalisation are much more recent. From 2008 to 2010, for example, state-owned development bank Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento (BNDES) provided $6.4bn (£3.9bn) in financing for Brazilian companies expanding abroad – five times the amount it had dispersed in the three previous years combined.

As newcomers to the global stage, Brazilian companies often lack the international experience of their foreign counterparts. Large Brazilian multinationals like Petrobras and Embraer have already established global strategies similar to other major multinationals. But the new wave of expanding Brazilian companies are often entering the market for the first time.

Because of this inexperience, they often tend to keep a tighter rein on their subsidiaries, making most business decisions from headquarters in Brazil. They also face obstacles such as language. Although many Brazilian business people speak English, it is not as ingrained in the culture as in other emerging countries such as India, where companies have a much longer tradition of operating abroad because of the country's ties to the UK.

Yet despite these challenges, Brazilians are increasingly recognising and responding to the need to change direction to maintain the country's strong gross domestic product growth and to reap the benefits of operating at the global level.

The bigger picture

Long before international firms set their sights on Brazil, our law firm recognised the value of co-operating with a foreign firm, and our relationship has flourished for more than 50 years. As the needs of our clients have changed, so have our practices. We have invested heavily in training programmes for our lawyers to stay ahead of the trends. As a result, more than half of our lawyers have completed master's programmes in Brazil and abroad.

Finding a law firm that has it all can be challenging for clients, particularly in Brazil where strict local Bar rules prohibit international law firms from practising. But there is no doubt that given the new business landscape, Brazilian companies need lawyers who not only see the big picture, but the global picture.

Claudia Farkouh Prado is the managing partner at Trench Rossi & Watanabe, an associated firm of Baker & McKenzie. She is based in Sao Paulo.