Recolito Ferdinand N. Cantre Jr.

A Senior Partner in the Law Firm of Sarmiento Loriega (“SL Law”), Mr. Cantre was admitted to the Philippine Bar in 2011. He obtained his Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law, graduating in the top quartile of the class of 2010. He is also a Certified Public Accountant, with a degree in Accountancy from the Jose Rizal University and ranking 15 th in the May 2005 CPA Board Exams. Mr. Cantre was an Oblation Scholar in the University of the Philippines, being among the top 50 examinees in the U.P. College Admission Test.

Prior to law school, Mr. Cantre worked as a CPA in Punongbayan & Araullo (Grant Thornton) one of the Philippines’ Big 5 accounting firms. While in law school, he worked as a professorial lecturer teaching financial accounting to college students at the Jose Rizal University. Straight out of law school, Mr. Cantre cut his teeth in taxation law in the International Tax Services Group of SGV & Co., the Philippines’ largest multidisciplinary professional services firm and member practice of Ernst & Young – one of the world’s Big 4 accounting firms.

Before Mr. Cantre joined SL Law, he was mentored by Ms. Maria Elizabeth E. Peralta-Loriega (now one of SL Law’s Founding Partners) until he became the top Senior Associate in their Tax Practice Group at Puno & Puno Law Offices. During his time at Puno Law, Mr. Cantre was consistently recognized by the partners as a top performer in yearly performance reviews.

Today, Mr. Cantre is a corporate and tax lawyer with extensive experience in tax advisory and advocacy, mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring and reorganization, estate planning, project finance, securities, energy, and data privacy. He is also experienced in handling tax cases in various courts, boards and tribunals across the country.

In the field of taxation law, Mr. Cantre renders legal advice on complex and interrelated tax, corporate, and regulatory matters to clients in diverse industries, including real estate, media, finance, technology, outsourcing, mining, banking, and power. He also provides practical advice to high net-worth individuals catering to individual and family tax concerns, particularly in wealth management and estate planning. He represents clients in tax audits, requests for tax rulings, and in applications for treaty relief. He has led litigation teams and crafted legal strategy in tax cases from the various Local and Central Boards of Assessment Appeals across the country, the regular courts, the Court of Tax Appeals, and up to the Supreme Court. His tax litigation practice has a special focus on tax incentive claims of renewable energy plants in various local jurisdictions across the Philippine archipelago.

In M&A and project finance, he has structured complex cross-border transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate reorganizations for clients, both foreign and domestic. He was involved in the international corporate and tax restructuring of several hydroelectric power plant assets in the Philippines with a total installed capacity of 625 MW. He was also involved in the transaction advisory and structuring, due diligence, contract administration and/or negotiations in connection with the sale or project financing of several power plants in the Philippines, including a 414 MW natural gas plant and a 460 MW coal plant. More recent deals he has successfully closed include an award-winning 150 Million USD project financing as lender’s counsel, a 3 Billion PHP public bond listing as issuer’s counsel, and a statutory merger involving the tax-free exchange of more than 2.2 Billion PHP in real estate assets.

When not working on tax and M&A matters, Mr. Cantre likes to watch movies with his wife, read on business, technology, and history, and listen to investing wisdom and life lessons from Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. If he has more free time, he looks for the company of family and friends to run to the sun, the wind, and the sea.