The Government Development Bank - which acts as financial adviser and conduit issuer for the commonwealth - has hired banking veteran Jorge Irizarry as its executive vice president for financing, the GDB said in a statement last week.
While Irizarry has more than 20 years of banking experience at various companies, his longest stint was with the former PaineWebber Inc., where he was the investment banking director for Latin America between 1986 and 1998, the GDB statement said. After PaineWebber, Irizarry co-founded Sandoval Associates, a minority-owned firm that specializes in advising companies - such as Proctor & Gamble, Merck & Co., and Pepsi Co. - on doing business in Puerto Rico, Latin America, and the U.S.
Irizarry holds a master's degree in business with a finance and marketing concentration from Harvard Business School and an undergraduate finance degree from New York University.
Puerto Rico, which is trying to close a $1.3 billion deficit in its general fund budget, plans to sell up to $2 billion of pension obligation bonds and another $1 billion of debt in various series in the second half of this year, GDB president William Lockwood said last week.
Standard & Poor's rates the island's general obligation debt A-minus with a negative outlook and Moody's Investors Service assigns its Baa1 rating with a negative outlook to the GO debt. Fitch Ratings does not have underlying ratings on Puerto Rico's GO debt.
