Porfirio F. Ramirez, Jr. is a Partner in the Corporate and International Practices of Smith, Gambrell & Russell’s New York office.
Mr. Ramirez is one of the leaders of SGR’s Latin America Practice. He focuses his practice on domestic and international private finance transactions (structured and leveraged finance), acquisitions and commercial transactions. He also handles a broad range of other cross-border matters for his clients.
Mr. Ramirez is a member of the New York Advisory Board of the Instituto Brasileiro de Direito Empresarial (IBRADEMP). He is also a member of the New York City Bar Association, where he has served various terms as a member of the International Business Transactions Committee, Committee on Minorities in the Profession, Structured Finance Committee, Judiciary Committee and Committee on Judicial Administration. He is a member of the International Bar Association and the American Bar Association.
Early in his career Mr. Ramirez was a lead lawyer in the external country debt restructurings (“Brady Bond” transactions) of Venezuela, Brazil and Panama, representing their respective Finance Ministries. Since 1989, he has also helped develop and has represented a major credit card company in connection with billions of dollars of debt offerings by the company’s members in Mexico, Brazil, Panama, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Turkey, Egypt and Russia, backed by securitizations of such members’ international interchange.
Mr. Ramirez has represented a Brazilian national telecom provider and its subsidiaries in connection with various investments outside Brazil and litigation in the United States and represented various Brazilian banks in developing new products. He also represented a Colombian transportation group in a joint venture to bid on a public transportation concession in Bogatá and represents the owner-operators of an undersea fiber optic cable network in various construction projects.
Mr. Ramirez received his A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College and his J.D. degree from Harvard Law School. He is admitted to the New York Bar.
New York City Bar Association
International Bar Association
American Bar Association