January 2018 - Astris Finance appoints Gonzalo Ruiz de Angulo as Director & Head of its recently opened Madrid office

Following the opening of the office back in November 2017, and the hiring of Juan Fabregas as first senior recruit for its Spanish team, Astris is now pleased to announce the recruitment of Gonzalo Ruiz de Angulo, a project finance banker with over 15 years of experience, who joined the firm on Monday, January 8, 2018 as Director & Head of the Madrid office.

Gonzalo has 15 years of experience in project and corporate finance and has acted as lead arranger as well as financial advisor on a wealth of infrastructure and energy deals primarily in Europe and Latin America. He joins Astris from ING, where he was the director leading the bank’s Latin American effort in the power space. Prior to this, Gonzalo worked for BBVA, where his last role was as Global Head of Energy, Oil & Gas, and Environmental Services. Formerly, he was head of Power for Latin America and Head of Renewable Energy for EMEA, always with a strong focus on financial advisory.

In total, Gonzalo spent 11 years at BBVA, including six in New York working on projects in Latin America and globally, and five in Spain, where he worked intensely in the Spanish renewable market as well as in other sectors and geographies.

Prior to BBVA, Gonzalo had spent three years on the developer side, at Enel Union Fenosa Renovables, based in Madrid, where he ended up as Head of Finance for the Iberian Peninsula.

Fabrice Henry, Astris’s Chief Executive Officer, commented on Gonzalo’s joining: “We are delighted to welcome such an experienced project finance banker as Gonzalo to the Astris family. Gonzalo’s background is a perfect fit to spearhead Astris’s development in the Iberian Peninsula and to strengthen our on-going relationships with Spanish and Portuguese sponsors on a global basis. I am convinced that Gonzalo’s entrepreneurial spirit and creativity will contribute to add significant value to our infrastructure and energy clients.”

November 2017 - Astris opens an office in Spain and announces new hires in Madrid

Edited in January 2018

Astris Finance is very pleased to announce the opening of its Madrid office with full origination and execution capabilities. The Madrid office will serve to accomplish two complementary goals for Astris:

The Madrid office will allow Astris to grow its presence in the Iberian Peninsula, where it is already active. Astris recently closed two refinancings in the Portuguese renewable energy sector and is currently working on a toll road refinancing in Spain. Astris aims to get involved in the Plan Extraordinario de Inversión en Carreteras (known as PIC), a € 5 bn road PPP program about to be launched by the Government of Spain. Astris also strives to expand its global renewable energy franchise into the fast-growing Spanish market and hopes to bring added value in the context of a renewable energy contractual framework that includes a strong element of merchant risk.

The Madrid office will also allow Astris to further support its long-standing Spanish clients who have been active in Latin America, a key market for the firm. Astris has historically supported, and continues to support, clients on major projects in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, among other countries in Latin America, and has been advising a number of Spanish investors, developers and contractors in these markets over the past 17 years.

Astris Finance appoints Gonzalo Ruiz de Angulo as Director & Head of its recently opened Madrid office and Juan Fabregas as Vice-President in its Madrid office.

Astris is pleased to announce the first senior recruits for its Spanish team.

Gonzalo Ruiz de Angulo, a project finance banker with over 15 years of experience, joined the firm on Monday, January 8, 2018 as Director & Head of the Madrid office.

Gonzalo has 15 years of experience in project and corporate finance and has acted as lead arranger as well as financial advisor on a wealth of infrastructure and energy deals primarily in Europe and Latin America. He joins Astris from ING, where he was the director leading the bank’s Latin American effort in the power space. Prior to this, Gonzalo worked for BBVA, where his last role was as Global Head of Energy, Oil & Gas, and Environmental Services. Formerly, he was head of Power for Latin America and Head of Renewable Energy for EMEA, always with a strong focus on financial advisory.

In total, Gonzalo spent 11 years at BBVA, including six in New York working on projects in Latin America and globally, and five in Spain, where he worked intensely in the Spanish renewable market as well as in other sectors and geographies.

Prior to BBVA, Gonzalo had spent three years on the developer side, at Enel Union Fenosa Renovables, based in Madrid, where he ended up as Head of Finance for the Iberian Peninsula.

Juan Fabregas, a project finance banker with close to 10 years of experience, joined the firm on November 27, 2017 as Vice-President.

As a project finance banker, Juan has acted as lead arranger as well as financial advisor in many markets and industries. He joins Astris from BBVA, where he was a vice-president in the infrastructure and energy team. Juan spent 4 years at BBVA, including two in Chile working on Latin American projects, and two in Spain, where he worked intensely in the Spanish renewable market.

Prior to BBVA, Juan had spent four years at Crédit Agricole CIB in London, as an associate in the project finance team.  There, Juan worked on a host of infrastructure deals in the UK, continental Europe as well as the Middle East.

Astris is also in advanced talks to recruit a senior director who will head the Madrid office and work with Juan. The full team is expected to be up and running by year end.

April 2016 – Astris to appoint Michael C. Sagcal as Astris’ Country Representative in the Philippines

Astris Finance is very pleased to announce that Michael C. Sagcal has joined its team as Country Representative based in Manila, Philippines. 

Prior to joining Astris Finance, Michael was Spokesperson and Communications Director at the Philippines’ Department of Transportation from 2012 to 2015. While concurrently serving as Senior Project Development Officer in 2013, he worked on special issues in the structuring and tender of the agency’s first set of PPPs: the USD 1.3 Bn LRT-1 Extension, the USD 340 Mn Mactan-Cebu International Airport, and the USD 34 Mn LRT-MRT Automatic Fare Collection System.

He spent two years at a law firm from 2010 to 2012, where his infrastructure and energy practice included acting as transaction advisor to the PPP Center and advising the National Renewable Energy Board in formulating the country’s landmark Feed-In Tariff Rules.

Michael earned his Juris Doctor degree from the University of the Philippines in 2009 and his Diploma in Corporate Finance from the Ateneo de Manila University in 2014. He also attended the PPP Foundation Masterclass Program at Her Majesty’s Treasury – Infrastructure UK as a Mansion House Scholar in 2012.

February 2016 - Astris hires Santiago Pardo as Managing Director based in Bogotá, Colombia

Astris Finance is very pleased to announce that Santiago Pardo has joined its team as Managing Director based in Bogotá, Colombia.

Santiago will head the Colombia office of Astris Finance. In Colombia, the firm has been working on the government’s road concession program known as 4G for the past three years, and is also involved in conventional and renewable energy, oil and gas, and in the port sector. Santiago will also strengthen Astris’s presence in the Andean region, and particularly in Peru where Astris has been one of the leading infrastructure and energy advisors in the past years.

Over the past 20 years, Santiago Pardo has acquired a unique blend of infrastructure finance experience, encompassing both the corporate perspective and the banking perspective. He has developed very strong expertise in project finance, debt capital markets, M&A, project development, and private equity. His industry track record spans oil & gas, infrastructure, power, and mining.

Santiago began his career at Citibank Colombia in 1991, moving to New York in 1997 where he worked for 11 years with Citi’s Infrastructure and Energy Finance Group, including 6 years as head of the Latin America team. During this time, he was directly responsible for closing over 20 transactions in 12 different countries in the Americas, raising over USD 8 billion in funding from multiple sources.

Santiago moved back to Colombia in 2008, where he transitioned to the corporate side, serving as Project Finance Director for Reficar, an Ecopetrol-developed refinery project, then as Managing Director for Infrastructure and Energy at Abacus Capital, a local asset manager; from 2011 to 2014, he was CFO of TGI, the largest natural gas pipeline company in Colombia; and most recently (2014-2016), he served as CFO of La Luna Resources, an E&P company developing conventional and unconventional resources in Colombia. For these last two roles, he was selected as CFO by the major private equity investors backing these companies. At TGI, he personally led the refinancing of TGI’s USD 1,125 million debt in the international capital markets, and assisted CVCI in their successful exit of their investment in TGI for USD 880 million.

Santiago holds an MBA (with distinction) from the Johnson School at Cornell University, as well as a B.S. in economics from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. He is fluent in English and Spanish, and conversational in Portuguese.