Jorge Juantorena and Nick Grabar (slider)

Cleary assists in Mexico’s $2.2bn SDG bond

Cleary Gottlieb has assisted the Estados Unidos Mexicanos (Mexico) in connection with a registered offering of $2,203,576,000 US dollar principal amount of its 4.875% global bonds due 2033, linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The offering was launched and priced on 8 August and is expected to close on 19 August this year. This transaction results in Mexico’s third series of SDG-linked bonds.

Mexico aims to use an equal amount of the proceeds from the sale of the bonds to finance programmes under Mexico’s SDG sovereign bond framework, with the objective of integrating the achievement of the SDGs into Mexico’s national planning, budgetary and fiscal policies.

In addition, Mexico also conducted a cash tender offer for certain outstanding series of bonds, which was launched on 8 August 2022 and expired on the same day. Holders of certain outstanding series of Mexico’s securities were offered the opportunity to “switch” to the new bonds by submitting an indication of interest at the same time as their offer. The exchange offer resulted in the repurchase of a total of approximately $487 million USD principal amount of outstanding securities of 12 series.

BBVA Securities Inc, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Natixis Securities Americas LLC acted as underwriters for the bond offering and joint book-running managers for the repurchase offer.

As well as paying the purchase price of the outstanding securities under the exchange offer, Mexico also expects to use the proceeds to pay the redemption price of some or all of its US dollar-denominated global notes due 2025.

Cleary’s team included partners Jorge Juantorena (pictured left) and Nick Grabar (pictured right) and associates Ignacio Lagos, Olivia Wittels, Martin Sasson and Nicholas Richards. Partner Jason Factor, counsel Matthew Brigham and associate Adriana De Bartolo advised on New York tax matters. All of the lawyers are based in New York.

L Giselle Estrada

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