You are Lucía Arenas-Beltrán, chief executive of Helio Verde. Twelve weeks ago you signed the US$285 million purchase of Cárnicos del Pacífico. Today, Wednesday, September 16, 2026, two regulators have opened in-depth reviews, and your war-room must first decide how to answer the Brazilian authority's theory.
The situation
Helio Verde is a family-controlled Costarian group with six divisions, about US$3.1 billion of revenue and US$412 million of EBITDA in 2025. One of them, Helio Brasil Cárnicos, imports and wholesales beef in Brazil from three distribution centres. Cárnicos del Pacífico, a Mexican premium-beef exporter, earns about US$78 million of EBITDA on US$420 million of revenue; 14% of its sales go to Brazil through three independent distributors.
Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE) has a vertical theory. Helio Brasil holds 14.0% of Brazil's premium-cuts beef-import market and Cárnicos del Pacífico another 5.1%. The three independent distributors buy about 17% of their volume from Cárnicos del Pacífico; after the deal they would be buying it from a rival that competes with them downstream. CADE asks whether Helio Verde would have the ability and the incentive to restrict or reprice that supply. It is on day 105 of 240 and expects a remedies proposal within ten working days.
The European Commission has a different concern, horizontal and geographic, and its formal remedies window does not open until week 16: you will have to commit in Brazil before you know what Brussels will ask. At 11:50 the chair, Manuel Beltrán-Rojas, 71, who watched Costaria's competition authority block his purchase of Lácteos Andinos after twenty months in 2019, called you. One sentence: no remedy north of US$6 million of annual EBITDA given up.
Your outside counsel disagree. Otávio Caldas-Bittencourt, in São Paulo, spent three years advising the CADE Tribunal and wants a clean structural fix in Brazil. Hélène Vacher-Lamoureux, in Brussels, a former Commission case handler, would rather offer something structural in the EU early. Today they put the chance of clearance at 50% at CADE and 60% at the Commission. A prohibition would cost a US$22 million break fee to the selling family, on top of the US$14 million already spent.