Award granted to the most active law firm in capital markets

Vieira de Almeida & Associados (VdA) has been awarded with the first ‘NYSE Euronext Lisbon Award' for ‘Most Active Law Firm in Capital Markets' in Portugal.

For the first time, the NYSE Euronext Portugal has awarded 16 organisations that excelled in the capital markets in 2011. The awards are aimed at raising the visibility of those companies operating in the stock market throughout the year and who actively contributed to the development of the Portuguese capital market. These include issuers, brokers, investment banks, analysts, fund managers, academics and law firms, in which category VdA was granted the award.

This prize acknowledges VdA's relentless activity and effort in the past months years in this area of practice. VdA's Banking & Finance and Capital Markets team has advised numerous relevant transactions in the country, namely advising the issuers in their State guaranteed public offer of bonds, conducted last year by Portuguese financial institutions such as BES, CGD and Banif, as well as advising the mortgage covered bonds programs for many Portuguese credit institutions such as BES, BPI, CGD, BCP. On the equity side, reference should also be made to one of the few public offer transactions that was concluded during 2011, by Reditus.

The team has also been strengthened with José Pedro Fazenda Martins - former Head of Markets and Corporate Finance Department at the Portuguese Securities Commission - in October 2011.

VdA's Banking & Finance/ Capital Markets teams, namely comprising Pedro Cassiano Santos, Helena Vaz Pinto, Pedro Simões Coelho, Paula Gomes Freire, José Pedro Fazenda Martins and Ana Rita Almeida Campos were glad to attend the awards ceremony last January 26th and proud to receive this award granted simply on the basis of the law firm having assisted the highest volume of transactions listed into the Lisbon stock exchange in the course of last year.

According to the awards organization, "the creation of the NYSE Euronext Lisbon Awards is another step in the development of the market and ultimately in Portugal's economic growth'.