About

Number of years practice: 28

Principal practice areas: Capital Markets, Corporate Advisory, Corporate Governance, Mergers, Acquisitions and Joint Ventures

Bar admissions: California, New York

Languages spoken: English, Spanish

Jorge Juantorena’s practice focuses on capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, bank finance, and corporate governance. He concentrates on cross-border transactions, principally in Latin America. He has extensive experience representing foreign SEC-registered companies in corporate governance matters.

Juantorena joined the firm in 1992 and became partner in 2000. He received his JD, cum laude, from New York University Law School in 1991 and his BA, cum laude, from Cornell University in 1988.

The team at Cleary has restructured an exceptional amount of private sector debt – including, in Mexico, the ICA restructuring, which was the largest in the country over the last five years. Other significant cross-border restructuring work for Mexican clients includes representation of Oro Negro, ODH, Oceanografia, Arendal, Maxcom, Corporación GEO, Comerci, Gruma, Industrias Unidas, IusaCell, and others.

The firm has maintained a dominant market position, with over $50bn in closed M&A involving Mexican companies and over $175bn in capital markets offerings by Mexican issuers since 2006, including Grupo Bimbo in its strategic outbound acquisitions that transformed them into the world’s largest baking company; and Pemex in several innovative financings, including the largest-ever euro-denominated emerging-market corporate-bond offering.

Cleary’s distinguished historical prominence in Mexico has facilitated the establishment of excellent relationships with Mexican government offices and financial institutions, including the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit and Banxico. In the private sector the team represents Banorte, Citibanamex, Inbursa, and Santander Mexico, and has represented BlackRock in asset management matters. The firm has advised on many of most significant IPOs to come out of Mexico over the past few years, including Vista Oil & Gas, Grupo México Transportes, and IEnova.

Cleary prides itself on its ability to leverage a global network of lawyers as a single, integrated global partnership. On a practical level, the firm has over 200 Spanish-speaking professionals across the globe, which facilitiates cross-border work involving multinationals and domestic companies requiring cross-border expertise.