Ogier's LatAm team advises Pismo on its US$1 billion acquisition by Visa

Ogier's LatAm team in the Cayman Islands has advised Pismo on its US$1 billion acquisition by Visa (NYSE:V), the largest announced M&A of the year so far "anywhere" according to Forbes. The deal signed on 28 June 2023 and is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Pismo, a cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform, was founded in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2016 and transformed itself from a home-grown start-up to expand throughout Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Europe, providing an all-in-one processing platform for banking and payments. By acquiring Pismo, Visa will be positioned to provide core banking and issuer processing capabilities across debit, prepaid, credit and commercial cards for clients via cloud native APIs. Pismo’s platform will also enable Visa to provide support and connectivity for emerging payment rails, like Pix in Brazil, for financial institution clients.

Ogier's specialist Latin American practice team (led by partners Giorgio Subiotto and Tim Cone) advised Pismo on all Cayman Islands aspects of the sale to Visa, working alongside US counsel, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, and Brazil counsel, Pinheiro Neto Advogados. Ogier had previously assisted Pismo with the initial establishment of its Cayman Islands holding company in support of its international expansion, which included advising on its US$108 million Series B financing round led by SoftBank, Amazon and Accel with participation from B3, Falabella Ventures and PruVen and existing investors, Headline and Redpoint eventures.

Giorgio Subiotto, lead partner on the transaction, commented: "This transaction is a great example of a Latin American client who was able to scale its business internationally using a Cayman Islands corporate structure. It was inspiring to witness Pismo grow over the years from a fintech start-up based in São Paulo to a global player providing cutting-edge solutions in the digital banking and payments industry across Latin America and also Asia and Europe. We are excited to have been a part of their story and this transaction."

Other members of the Ogier team advising Pismo included Tim Cone (Partner), Tom McLaughlin and Graeme Loarridge (Managing Associates), Dalton Turner and Jasjit Grewal (Associates) and Gustavo Dalcolmo (Legal Consultant).