On October 22, LatinFinance inaugurated SFLA – Structured Finance in Latin America forum at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, bringing together the region’s most active structured market players from the investor, issuer, financial advisory, banking, rating agency, legal and regulatory perspectives. Featuring a full day of forward looking panel discussions, technical presentations and private 1-1 meetings, SFLA marked its ground both as a definitive platform for thought leadership on Latin American structured finance and as an unparalleled networking hub for the players driving it forward.

The event kicked off with discussing the current state of structured financing in Latin America, taking stock of some of the standard securities in use, the characteristics of investor demand, common challenges faced, and the forecast for a pickup in structured issuance. Among those that took the stage was Ricardo Dueñas, CFO of the $12bn Mexico City Airport project and frequent user of ABS, who spoke in detail on some of the airport’s revenue packaging techniques and its “implicit government guarantee” – a common feature for many of the region’s larger projects. Complementing this, Holland & Knight Partner Boris Otto made clear the risks that these new financing structures and their investor bases face, warning of the legal limbo and never-before-tried restructuring procedures a failed financing could face, especially ones with the size and scope of those currently in the pipeline.