About

Oscar Lira, executive manager, legal and corporate affairs of Pacific Hydro is a highly regarded and experienced executive who is described by nominators as an ‘all-rounder’, bringing his legal acumen to the commercial activity of the company with excellent results. Joining in 2015, Lira took part in the sale of the company to its new parent company SPIC Group, a Chinese state-owned company and one of the largest energy generators in the world with more than 143GW installed. He identifies that, ‘from then on I have taken part on international syndicate loans, due diligence for various M&A deals, complex international insurance claims and also being able to participate in the development, construction and operation of our first wind farm Punta Sierra’. One of his proudest in-house experiences relates to the recent syndicate facility agreement, a US$500m international credit recently completed. This highly complex transaction involved five different banks which had no permanent offices in Chile. This situation made it necessary for him and his team not only to study and prepare the financial documents, but to explain and deal with innumerable questions regarding the energy framework, the regulations of liens and encumbrances, legal restrictions and different legislation procedures among other issues raised by the banks during the negotiations. He says of this time that it ‘made me learn how to handle stressful multicultural, multilanguage and with more than three different time zones negotiations that needed a conciliator approach and at the same time a string legal approach that had to say “no” to requests not applicable to our legislation’. Lira has been part of legislation discussions, involved with the trade association and is currently leading on behalf of Pacific Hydro the Apec 2019 CEO Summit in which the company is a platinum sponsor. He will also take part of the COP25 climate change conference that will take part in Chile in late 2019.