About

One of the top four Mexican commercial banks by assets, Grupo Financiero Banorte has over 1,000 branches within the country and a listing on the Mexican Stock Exchange, where it forms part of the IPC benchmark index. It currently trades under the names Banorte and Ixe, after these two entities merged to form the overall group in 2010. The legal team at Grupo Financiero Banorte, which was heavily involved in the negotiations and finalisation of the $1.3bn merger, currently stands at approximately 400 lawyers and 100 operational employees, and is led by a highly experienced legal financial services professional in general counsel and secretary of the board Héctor Ávila Flores. The team has successfully reorganised itself over the past few years, and now features dedicated litigation, M&A and other departments that are able to respond to any challenges that emerge from these specific areas. This has fostered a culture of expertise within the team, which has allowed them to achieve a number of notable successes to go alongside their effective support of the 2010 merger. Chief among these was the groundwork that the team laid for the company’s mid-2013 Initial Public Offering (IPO), a significant milestone that raised around $2.5bn and was one of the most important instances in the Mexican business landscape that year. The team has also managed a highly complex transition in compliance measures as the regulatory landscape of the Mexican financial system underwent a major update and reorganisation recently, showing the team is able to manage large and complicated projects with ability and confidence.