About
SANTIAGO SEPÚLVEDA IS A PARTNER IN THE FIRM’S MEXICO CITY OFFICE AND HEADS THE PROJECT DEVELOPMENT AND FINANCE PRACTICE.
Santiago represents Mexican and international clients in the structuring, development, and financing of large-scale energy and infrastructure projects in Mexico, spanning oil and gas, power generation and storage, critical minerals and the energy transition (including green and blue hydrogen), transport infrastructure, telecommunications and digital infrastructure, and water, waste and social infrastructure developed under public-private partnerships and concessions. His clients include major energy and infrastructure companies, project sponsors and developers, engineering and construction companies, lenders, multilateral institutions, and private equity investors. He advises sponsors, developers, investors, and financiers on permitting, regulatory compliance, and commercial and contractual matters across the full project lifecycle, and represents private equity funds investing in energy, natural resource, and infrastructure projects. He also advises on acquisitions and divestitures of interests and assets across these sectors, including the regulatory and antitrust aspects such transactions involve.
Santiago led the Firm’s team representing KKR in both phases of its investment in Sempra Infrastructure Partners, one of North America's leading energy infrastructure platforms and the parent of IEnova in Mexico, as well as ADIA and CPPIB in their respective related acquisitions. In 2022, he advised on KKR's acquisition of a 20% non-controlling interest in Sempra Infrastructure Partners for approximately US$3.4 billion, together with ADIA's related acquisition of a 10% interest. He subsequently advised KKR, together with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), in the 2025-2026 acquisition of a controlling interest in Sempra Infrastructure Partners (at an enterprise value of US$31.7 billion) through which the KKR-led consortium became the platform's majority owner.
His recent representative experience also includes serving as Mexican counsel to Global Infrastructure Partners in its US$275 million acquisition (together with a USD $325 million refinancing) of Saavi Energía from Actis LLP, a 2.2 GW portfolio of nine energy facilities, including six combined-cycle gas turbine plants, three gas compression stations, and 65 kilometers of associated natural gas pipelines, and at the time the largest privately held stand-alone power generator in Mexico.
He also led the Firm’s team advising Global Power Generation, S.A. and its Mexican subsidiaries, owners and operators of five combined-cycle and renewable power facilities, as special Mexican counsel in an approximately US$1.3 billion dual-tranche syndicated refinancing arranged by a syndicate of 17 international banks, one of the largest such refinancings in Mexico's energy sector in recent years, which required a detailed analysis of Mexico's newly enacted Power Sector Law and its impact on the underlying assets, alongside the negotiation of English-law facility provisions for the Mexican obligors and coordination across Spain, England, and Mexico.
He advised KKR in structuring and negotiating with Pemex a first-of-its-kind US$1.2 billion sale-leaseback transaction involving upstream E&P assets. For the past 20 years, he has also acted as Mexican counsel to the consortium formed by Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Korea Gas Corporation, and Samsung Corporation and their project company, Terminal KMS, in their winning bid for the contract awarded by the Mexican Federal Electricity Commission for the design, construction, and operation of an LNG Storage Terminal located in Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico, responsible for all aspects of the project, including its original project finance and various refinancings, as well as all commercial, environmental, and regulatory matters.
Santiago is recognized as a leading practitioner in energy, natural resources, projects, and project finance by Chambers Latin America, The International Who's Who of Energy Lawyers, IFLR1000, Latin Lawyer 250, and Best Lawyers.
He obtained his law degree from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México in 1996 and his LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law in 1998. He worked as a foreign associate in the New York office of Mayer Brown. He is a member of the Mexican Bar Association and the International Bar Association. Santiago is a native Spanish speaker with native fluency in English.