Araújo Fontes assists its clients in structuring and setting up transactions designed to realign their capital structure. The use of appropriate capital structuring tools can be decisive in assuring a company’s financial health. Nevertheless, even those companies with good liquidity should pay attention to their capital structure, as access to different sources of capital can bring about significant financial benefits for their operations.

In today’s dynamic, competitive, globalized environment, companies can take advantage of new business and investment opportunities, while ensuring an appropriate capital structure. Araújo Fontes’s professionals are skilled in identifying, structuring and obtaining resources from different sources, such as local and foreign capital markets (CCBs, promissory notes, simple and convertible debentures, Eurobonds, commercial papers, FIDCs, etc.), mezzanine operations with strategic investors (private equity), structured trade financing, forfaiting, syndicated loans on the domestic or foreign market, asset-backed securities and others.

Araújo Fontes has ample skills and experience in structuring a wide range of investment vehicles, providing companies with different funding options, a better capital structure and greater fiscal efficiency. The key products we work with are:

- FIP, (Fundo de Investimentos em Participação, or Private Equity Fund), a great option for corporate groups, which can even use the fund to generate the group’s cash flow, enhancing their fiscal efficiency;

- FII (Fundo de Investimento Imobiliário, or Real Estate Investment Trust), ideal for anyone keen to invest in the real estate market but who doesn’t want to take on the risks inherent to a few specific properties, with effects on income tax and capital gains;

- CRI (Certificado de Recebível Imobiliário, or Real Estate Credit Certificate), an instrument that can be issued by companies that have real estate receivables, giving them the opportunity to raise funds from the sale of these certificates; for investors, the advantage is greater fiscal efficiency;

- FIDC (Fundo de Investimentos em Direitos Creditórios, or Credit Receivables Fund), which is a pool of receivables of different kinds from different companies; the resources from investors in the fund generate funding for these companies and help improve their capital structure.

Companies’ structures should reflect their shareholders’ needs. Different situations may make it pertinent to alter their structure, such as succession processes, shareholder/partnership agreements, mergers, split-offs, joint ventures, preparation for stock flotations, among others. Araújo Fontes can develop and implement structures capable of maximizing the benefits to be gleaned from specific transactions.

Tax structuring projects are essential to optimize companies’ business deals. The right tax structure can assure financial benefits in many different kinds of transactions, and may even be the deciding factor in whether or not to go ahead with a deal. Araújo Fontes is prepared to develop and implement tax structures that best meet their clients’ specific and one-off needs, combining their tax, financial and organizational structures.