About

Number of years practice: 23 Principal practice areas: Cross-border finance Bar admissions: California, New York Languages spoken: English and Spanish

William Candelaria joined DLA Piper’s New York office from Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle in November 2017. With more than 20 years’ experience of cross-border financings throughout Latin America, he advises corporations, commercial and investment banks, private issuers, underwriters and family offices on bank and trade financings, debt and equity placements, restructurings and M&A operations in diverse sectors, including financial services and investment management, media and communications, food and beverages, hospitality, real estate and tourism, infrastructure and transportation, and oil and gas. His headline work includes advising Mexico’s Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior (Bancomext) on the structuring, negotiation and development of a new master trade finance programme with Worldbusiness Capital and other US-based financial institutions; advising Mexico’s leading hotel operator, Grupo Posadas, in a $50m notes offering, as well as on a liability management and refinancing transaction consisting of a Rule 144A/Reg S capital markets offering of $350m-worth of new senior notes and a concurrent tender offer for any and all of its existing senior notes due 2017. He also advises clients on corporate governance and compliance matters. Among his other activities, Candelaria has chaired the Mexico panel at the Institute of Americas’ annual La Jolla conference (one of the most prestigious energy policy forums globally) for a number of years; and served as vice chair and director of the Mexican American Legal Defence and Educational Fund since 2011.