Mariana Serra Baptista

Mariana Serra Baptista is a Counsel in the Lisbon Corporate Department. Her recent practice has focused on corporate law and capital markets transactions, in particular M&A work, JVs, restructurings, tender offers, IPOs, right issues by issuing new shares with later admission of the same listing and reprivatisations. Besides the transactional work, she has also experience in advising on matters relating to securities law, regulatory and banking, with special focus on the perspective of credit and financial institutions.

Mariana advises domestic and international clients such as banks, private equity funds, and insurance companies on national and cross-border issues in the financial, tourism, retail, health care, infrastructure and telecommunications sectors.

Work highlights

• A leading financial institution and Horizon Equity Partners on the sale to Cellnex of a 75% interest in the Portuguese telecom tower company OMTEL.
• China Three Gorges (Europe) S.A. on the non-completed public takeovers launched over EDP - Energias de Portugal, S.A. and EDP Renováveis, S.A.
• Banco Santander Consumer Portugal (BSCP) and Santander Consumer Finance on the set up of a contractual partnership between BSCP and Banque PSA Finance, S.A. (the financial arm of PSA Peugeot Citroën group)
• Arcus Infrastructure Partners, through its subsidiary Tagus Holdings S.à r.l. (a joint venture between Arcus Infrastructure Partners and Grupo José de Mello) in the takeover bid for the shares of Brisa - Autoestradas de Portugal, S.A., the leading toll road concession company in Portugal, and subsequent delisting of Brisa
• State Grid International Development Limited on its acquisition of 25% of Portugal’s state grid operator’s (REN) share capital.
• E.ON AG on its bid for the acquisition in the privatisation of a 21,35% stake in EDP - Energias de Portugal, SGPS, S.A. 

Mariana holds a Law Degree of the Nova University Law School (2003-2007).  She then completed the Academic part of the Master in Business Law at the Nova University Law School (2007-2008), followed by a Post-graduation in Securities Law at the Securities Institute of the Lisbon’s University Law School (2009-2010) and a Post-graduation in Banking Law at the Centre for Private Law Investigation (2016-2017).

She is a Member of the Portuguese Bar Association since 2011.

Mariana speaks Portuguese and English.

Mariana started her legal career with Linklaters in 2008 as Trainee Lawyer at the Lisbon office, where she was promoted to Associate in 2010, in 2018 to Managing Associate and in 2023 to Counsel in the Corporate Finance Department.

She had a six months secondment in the Linklaters’ São Paulo office in 2014 and a four months secondment with the Financial Regulation group in the Linklaters’ London office in 2017.

Mariana has been working closely with colleagues from other Linklaters offices, as well as coordinating with local counsel, in multijurisdictional teams on cross-border issues.

She has recently been selected for the Linklaters Women´s Leadership program 2020.

Mariana volunteers by providing legal advice, through the Linklaters Lisbon office.

Mariana published the following article, while working at the Dispute Resolution department of the Lisbon Linklaters office:

• The “Portugal” chapter in “World Class Actions: a Guide to Group and Representative Actions around the Globe”, with Carla Gonçalves Borges