You are Pilar Saavedra, founding partner and managing director of Banco Llareta Capital, a small investment bank in Santiago, Chile. Your heads of area want 24 senior bankers for three live transactions; you have 18. A Colombian conglomerate is offering you a fourth. The Executive Committee must answer it on Friday 7 March 2025.
The situation
You founded Llareta in 2008 with three other partners, after fourteen years selling mining assets from the Chilean office of a global bank. Today it has 84 staff, 18 of them senior bankers, a restricted banking licence (it takes no deposits) and EBITDA of about CLP 18,400 million a year. Almost everything is paid at closing: no deal, no fee. The four partners hold personal guarantees over some of the bank's commitments.
The bank has never had three transactions of this size open at once. The sale of Litio Norte to Hanlongtai, a Chinese buyer, would pay a fee of 18,500 million, but CORFO holds a right of first refusal over lithium sales to buyers from outside the OECD, and a Senate committee is preparing a review. The New York listing of Eneralta Renovables, with a green bond, would bring about 12,000 million over eight to ten months, in a market where comparable listings trade below their issue price. The securitisation of three Santiago motorways' tolls would pay 3,400 million, and the bank would keep 34,000 million of the bonds on its balance sheet: 185% of its annual EBITDA.
The fourth comes from Bogotá: a conglomerate wants to buy a Chilean food company and offers Llareta the buy-side mandate, with a fee of 4,200 million. It needs four senior bankers, which would leave 14 for work that is being asked of 24 today. Gonzalo Bustamante, your head of M&A, is already stretched by Litio Norte. You wrote on the whiteboard: 24 and 18.