Pedro Cassiano Santos joined VdA in 1989. He is the head partner in charge at the Banking & Finance area of practice taking responsibility for clients and transactions of the financial sector. He is regularly involved in the provision of legal advice in banking and capital markets’ regulatory matters as well as in the structuring of several financing transactions, such as the issue and placement (both national and international) of debt, hybrid and equity instruments, and the issue and placement of warrants and both cash and synthetic financial products. He has also been actively working in securitization transactions and other types of asset-backed transactions, together with the preparation of structured finance transactions, matters in respect of which he is a regular speaker in conferences and a guest teacher of many Masters and Post-Graduate courses organized by distinct Institutes and Universities. 

Pedro has been seconded to an international financial institution operating in Portugal for a total of 5 years, operating as the in-house legal department thereof. 

Ian Bell has worked in securitisation in various capacities since 1988, first as a lawyer and partner at Clifford Chance, then as general counsel and head of structured finance at Standard & Poor’s Europe and finally as CEO of PCS.

Inês Drumond, Vice-Chair of CMVM (Portuguese Securities Market Commission)

Inês Drumond is Vice-Chair of the Board of the Portuguese Securities Market Commission. Her prior professional experience includes work as Deputy Head of the Financial Stability Department of the Portuguese Central Bank – Banco de Portugal (2014-2022); Adviser of the Director for Structural Reforms and Competitiveness of DG ECFIN - European Commission (2012-2013); Director General at the Portuguese Ministry of Finance (2009-2012); and Assistant Professor at Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto (2007-2013). She received a Ph.D. in Economics from Faculdade de Economia da Universidade do Porto and is the author of several publications on macro-finance and financial stability.

Juan has experience of a wide range of financial transactions including structured finance transactions, acquisition financing (particularly the financing of private equity acquisition and LBO transactions), margin lending and equity derivatives. 

Also, since 2008, Juan has specialized in pre-insolvency debt restructurings (having advised on significant LBO debt restructurings) and in the advisory of specialized investors in the investment in distressed assets, acquisition of non-performing debt portfolios, corporate rescue financing (both on a pre-insolvency and an insolvency scenarios) and strategic insolvency advisory.

Juan is a Spanish licensed lawyer (Abogado) and a Solicitor of England and Wales, which has enabled him to advise on complex cross-border transactions.

Pablo Perez

Managing Director - Head of Capital Markets and Structuring

Zintra Capital

Experienced professional in asset-backed lending and capital markets offerings. In his role at Zintra Capital, supported the establishment of debt funds in the healthcare, renewable energy and corporate lending space with €600m in investment capacity. 

Prior to joining Zintra Capital, worked as Executive Director in JPMorgan's SPG division for 16 years

Peter is a leading securitisation and structured finance practitioner and partner in the Firm's Banking and Finance practice. He co-heads the firm's securitisation and structured finance practice. Peter's experience includes advising on many RMBS, CMBS, ABS, trade receivables and CLO programmes, and also on bank sponsored conduit programmes; he also has extensive experience of real estate finance transactions, including those financed by capital markets issues.

Isabel Rute Ucha da Silva is Chairman of the Board of Directors at Euronext Lisbon, the company that manages the Portuguese Stock Exchange, and also holds the position of Director of Euronext N.V., a multinational group that integrates several European stock exchanges.

Isabel Rute Ucha da Silva holds  a degree in Economics from the Catholic University, a Master's degree in Economics from the New University, and a Master Degree in Finance from the London Business School. On a professional level, and among other activities, she held the position of Advisor for Economic Affairs to the Prime Minister for 4 years, directed the Issuances and Markets Unit  of the Treasury and Public Debt Management Agency - IGCP, held positions at the Securities Market Commission (CMVM), and was an executive partner of a consulting firm for about 7 years. At the same time, she has been a lecturer at the Portuguese Catholic University teaching several economics and finance programs (Economics, Corporate Finance, Economics of Finance, Economics of Regulation, European Economics, Portuguese Economy, Corporate Governance). 

Alberto Nobili

Head of Investment Banking – Corporate

Alberto has more than 25 years of experience in capital markets, credit and rating analysis, focussing on asset-backed and corporate bond and lending transactions for most of his career. Prior to joining Banca Finint in 2012, Alberto was Head of Risk Division at the European Investment Fund that he joined from Unicredit Market & Investment Banking. Alberto started his career in PWC and Banca IMI before moving to Standard & Poor’s where he led the Structured Finance division in Italy.

At Banca Finint, Alberto structured the first ever Basket Bond more than a decade ago, using structural elements from both, asset backed as well as plain vanilla capital markets instruments. Since then, Banca Finint has gained a strong leadership in the Basket Bond market which today represents a viable and well-known funding channel for Italian SMEs and Mid-Caps, involving national and international investors, at times also with the support of public guarantee schemes in the form of credit enhancement.

Sebastião Nogueira joined VdA in 2013. He is currently Managing Associate in the Banking & Finance and in the Restructuring & Insolvency practice areas, working mainly on the issuance and placement of debt, classic financing and complex financing restructuring deals.

He is also actively involved in securitisation transactions, portfolio financing and other asset-backed deals, advising various market players and having gained ample knowledge and experience in these areas.

Sebastião is one of the key lawyers in VdA’s Banking & Finance practice in the field of NPL (Non-Performing Loans) transactions advising a full spectrum of clients, local and international, including investors, originators, arrangers and servicers.

In 2019 and 2020, he worked on secondment at the London office of Dentons law firm.

In 2018, he worked on secondment at a credit institution in East Timor, leading its legal department.

Pablo Sinausía is Director and Founding Partner of Caboalto Ltd, a consulting company based in London. Caboalto provides specialised advisory services in the fields of securitisation, credit risk mitigation, and prudential regulation, drawing on the founder’s extensive experience in drafting regulatory frameworks and supervising complex financial transactions. 

Formerly, Pablo served as Senior Economist at Bank of Spain, as Policy Expert at the European Banking Authority and as Securitisation Team Lead in the D.G. Horizontal Line Supervision at the European Central Bank. As Bank of Spain´s representative, Pablo participated in the development of the Revised Securitisation Framework at the Basel Committee in 2014-2017. 

Pedro Cassiano Santos joined VdA in 1989. He is the head partner in charge at the Banking & Finance area of practice taking responsibility for clients and transactions of the financial sector. He is regularly involved in the provision of legal advice in banking and capital markets’ regulatory matters as well as in the structuring of several financing transactions, such as the issue and placement (both national and international) of debt, hybrid and equity instruments, and the issue and placement of warrants and both cash and synthetic financial products. He has also been actively working in securitization transactions and other types of asset-backed transactions, together with the preparation of structured finance transactions, matters in respect of which he is a regular speaker in conferences and a guest teacher of many Masters and Post-Graduate courses organized by distinct Institutes and Universities. 

Pedro has been seconded to an international financial institution operating in Portugal for a total of 5 years, operating as the in-house legal department thereof.