Nardello & Co. was retained to conduct transactional due diligence for an investor contemplating the acquisition of a marine logistics company in Mexico.
A private equity firm contemplating the acquisition of a marine logistics company in Mexico retained Nardello & Co. to undertake a specialized transactional due diligence exercise that focused on the legal, business, and security risks posed by Mexican drug cartels operating in the region. After querying the company’s guidance for responding to criminal threats, Nardello & Co. assessed the anti-bribery and anti-corruption controls related to potential exposure to transnational criminal organizations and cartel-affiliated actors. Our investigators performed deep open-source research on the company’s principals and affiliates to identify cartel connections, criminal histories, and other relevant derogatory information, if any. Finally, we supplemented our open-source research with discreet inquiries with trusted sources—including present and former government officials and industry experts—gathering reputational intelligence on the company and its principals and confirming how cartels operate in the sector and region in question. Our informed risk assessment provided the client a clear picture of the operators and how they ran the business as well as the challenges the client would face in succeeding them.
