A key official in Mexico’s financial sector will leave the post during the transition

(Bloomberg) — President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed that the second-highest and longest-serving official at Mexico’s Finance Ministry is to leave her post, a surprise development amid a power transition in which officials they emphasized the continuity of investors. .

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“He wants to take on an international role,” Sheinbaum said of Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio’s departure in a video posted by state radio SPR Informa on his X account. The president-elect said he would make further announcements about his team , without giving details.

The planned exit of Yorio, who spent nearly six years as a top finance ministry official under President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was reported earlier by Bloomberg News, which cited people familiar with the plan who asked not to be identified for that he could. I don’t talk about it before it’s made public.

The Mexican peso fell on the news, weakening as much as 0.6% against the US dollar before paring losses. The country’s five-year credit default swaps rose. This year, the peso is the second-worst performer in a basket of emerging market currencies tracked by Bloomberg, down 14 percent.

Yorio has been the primary interlocutor with Wall Street investors and banks since the beginning of the administration, when he led the debt office. He has been a figure of stability, especially while Lopez Obrador has gone through the revolving door of three different finance ministers in his first three years in office.

“The markets are taking it badly because Yorio has been the spokesperson for the financial markets and investors,” said Marco Oviedo, strategist at XP Investimentos. “It is not known who will replace him in the context of future fiscal challenges.”

The news of Yorio’s departure comes just two weeks after Sheinbaum said “almost the entire top team” at the finance ministry will remain when he takes over on October 1. She emphasized the commitment of current Finance Minister Rogelio Ramirez de O to stay. as a sign to investors that the country will remain under constant financial administration.

Earlier this year, investors speculated that Yorio could occupy a key post in the new government, such as leading state oil company Pemex. Many considered him among the most investor-friendly officials in an administration that has repeatedly spooked markets in confrontations with some of Mexico’s top billionaires and companies.

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A former World Bank official, Yorio led Mexico’s design and issuance of sustainable bonds and helped promote a market reform bill aimed at boosting debt and equity listings of smaller companies.

Changes in the ministry

Yorio’s exit caps a series of intrigues at the finance ministry under Lopez Obrador, or AMLO, as the popular president is known.

AMLO’s first finance minister, Carlos Urzua, resigned barely half a year after repeated disagreements with the president over personnel and policy. Urzua has become a critic of the administration, publicly endorsing Sheinbaum’s opponent last year and joining the rival’s campaign.

Arturo Herrera, initially Urzua’s deputy and then his replacement, served for two years and was announced by AMLO as taking over the central bank in 2021. But months later, AMLO appointed Victoria Rodriguez, a treasury official , to run Banco de Mexico, a surprise decision. which caused the peso to crash.

–With the help of Vinícius Andrade.

(Updates with Sheinbaum’s comments in the first and second paragraphs.)

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