Cleary Gottlieb Advised on Latin America’s Two Largest Equity Offerings of 2016

October 19, 2016

Cleary Gottlieb was counsel on the two largest equity offerings completed in Latin America so far in 2016.

  • The firm represented the initial purchasers in a $1.6 billion follow-on equity offering by Infraestructura Energética Nova (IEnova), the largest equity offering in the region this year.
  • In Latin America’s second-largest equity offering, Cleary advised MercadoLibre (NASDAQ:MELI), an Argentine online marketplace, in a $1.2 billion SEC-registered secondary equity offering of 7,100,000 shares of common stock.

The two deals, which closed on October 19, 2016, bring the total amount of 2016 Latin American equity offerings in which Cleary served as counsel to over $3 billion and the total amount of Latin American capital markets transactions to over $50 billion.

The firm represented Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, Santander, BTG Pactual and Goldman Sachs as the initial purchasers in the $1.6 billion follow-on equity offering by IEnova, one of the leading Mexican private sector energy companies. The global offering included a public offering in Mexico through the Mexican Stock Exchange and a private placement in the U.S. under Rule 144A and outside of the U.S in reliance on Regulation S. The offering price was Ps.80.00 per share, and the proceeds will be used by IEnova to fund the buy-out of Pemex’s stake in Gasoductos de Chihuahua, one of the largest pipeline operators in Mexico, and the purchase of Ventika Energy, a recently-developed wind farm in Mexico.  

In MercadoLibre’s $1.2 billion secondary public offering, the underwriters, Morgan Stanley & Co. and J.P. Morgan Securities, have an option to purchase an additional 1,026,062 shares of common stock. The offering priced at $168.00 per share. All of the shares of common stock are being sold by eBay Inc. and its subsidiary, eBay International Treasury Center, as selling shareholders.

For additional information about these offerings, please see the official press release from IEnova here and the official press release from MercadoLibre here.