Luis Abundio Maldonado Bio

Luis Abundio is the Managing Partner of Dentons Guatemala. He is also the Co-Chair of the Infrastructure practice for Latin America and the Caribbean. In Guatemala, he leads the Banking and Finance Law and Public Law practice areas, including the Government Affairs and Public Policies sectors. He is specialized in regulated markets, including mining, energy, and telecommunications sectors. Luis Abundio has vast experience advising local and multinational corporations on tax planning and fiscal defense, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, debt refinancing, and complex investment fund structures in areas such as energy, mining, oil and gas, agribusiness, and real estate. During his distinguished professional career, he has managed M&A transactions surpassing US$1 billion, dispute resolutions in legal, community, and political matters for local and multinational companies investing in mining, construction, energy, and agribusiness in rural areas of Guatemala. In order to promote economic progress in the region, Luis Abundio is committed to developing strong capital markets and supporting foreign direct investments in Central America, having led for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) the structuring of the "Alliance for Prosperity Plan Fund for the Northern Triangle of Central America," the largest in the history of Central America, focused on raising more than US$3 billion for the development of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) projects in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. In addition, he led the structuring of the first Open-End Funds in Central America at the beginning of the 2000s for Guatemalan private business groups, and has acted as a trusted advisor for multilateral banks like the IDB, IFC and CABEI. Before joining Dentons, and after working in Citigroup Guatemala as Special Affairs Officer to the Superintendence of Banks, he has been co-founder and Financial and Legal Director of companies active in the real estate and agro-industrial sector in Mexico and Central America. Luis Abundio is actively involved in community development. He is fiduciary of the Foundation for the Development of Guatemala (FUNDESA), advisor to the Dean’s Board of The Universidad Rafael Landivar School of Medicine & Public Health, co-founder and former board member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) chapter for young leaders under 30 -Global Shapers-, pro-bono director of HopeXChange (which operates the most important private hospital in the Southeast Region of Guatemala, for people with limited resources), and former director of the Youth Promoters Committee in charge of fundraising for the new campus of the Universidad del Istmo, with an investment of over US$20 million. In 2009, he was also a member of the Executive Committee of one of the most significant movements to change Guatemala's violence and corruption culture. Currently, he is a member and speaker of GuateÍntegra, an anti-corruption initiative of the Guatemala Chamber of Industry (CIG), and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). In 2011, at Citigroup’s annual meeting in Guatemala held in honor of the company's 200th anniversary, he addressed the bank's 2,500 employees on excellence, vision and core values. In Law School, he was a teaching assistant teaching Roman Law I & Roman Law II, an editorial board member and was elected as a student representative to the Universidad Francisco Marroquin’s School of Law’s Faculty Board. His law degree thesis was on "The Latin American Miracle: Achieving Economic Progress, Social Development and the Rule of Law through Free Cities.”