29. June 2023
The PHH M&A team led by Rainer Kaspar and Wolfgang Guggenberger advised Belgian investor Airy de Murga (owner and CEO of Forestcape) and his affiliated company Hat Trick SRL on the formation of a joint venture with Austrian HS Timber Industrieinvest GmbH. The aim of the jointly established undertaking is to build a sawmill in Argentina and to produce and trade logs worldwide.
In the city of Gobernador Virasoro in Argentina, the country’s largest sawmill is currently being built, a highly efficient sawmill for small-diameter pine logs. The mill is scheduled to be operational by the end of 2023 and will process 650,000 m3 of logs per year in the first stage. The total capacity is 1.2 million m3 of roundwood, to be reached in a second stage. The wood comes 100 percent from sustainable forestry and is to be destined primarily for export. The project is being built and financed by the Austrian-Belgian joint venture of the Belgian investment management company Hat Trick SRL and the Austrian wood-processing company HS Timber Industrieinvest GmbH, a company of the HS Timber Group.
PHH advised the Belgian minority shareholder on this landmark project, in particular in connection with the conclusion of an investment agreement and the shareholders’ agreement with HS Timber Industrieinvest GmbH. In addition to the establishment of the joint venture for the production and construction of the sawmill in Argentina, the joint project also includes the establishment of a trading company for the distribution of the wood products. “We are pleased that with this project we were once again able to demonstrate our international and cross-border expertise,” says Rainer Kaspar, PHH Partner.
On the part of PHH Rechtsanwaelt:innen, in addition to partner Rainer Kaspar and senior associate Wolfgang Guggenberger (Corporate/M&A and Commercial), also Johannes Metzler (associate, Corporate/M&A) was part of the transaction team. HS Timber Industrieinvest GmbH was advised by Schoenherr Rechtsanwaelte under the lead of partners Christian Herbst and Maximilian Lang (both Corporate/M&A).