Key Mexico Finance Official to Leave Post Amid Transition

(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed that the second-highest-ranking and longest-tenured top official at Mexico’s finance ministry is set to leave his post, a surprise development amid a transition of power where officials have emphasized continuity to investors.

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

The planned exit by Yorio, who has spent almost six years as a senior official in the finance ministry 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 because they could not speak about it before it was made public. 

The Mexican peso dipped on the back of the news, weakening as much as 0.6% against the US dollar before trimming 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%.

Yorio has been the main interlocutor with Wall Street investors and banks since the start of the administration, when he ran the debt office. He was a figure of stability, particularly while Lopez Obrador churned through a revolving door of three different finance ministers in his first three years in office. 

“Markets are taking it badly since Yorio was the spokesperson in front of financial markets and investors,” said Marco Oviedo, a strategist at XP Investimentos. “It’s unknown who will replace him in the context of the fiscal challenges ahead.”

News of Yorio’s departure comes just two weeks after Sheinbaum said that “almost all of the top team” at the finance ministry would be staying when she takes office Oct. 1. She has pointed to current Finance Minister Rogelio Ramirez de la O’s commitment to stay in the role as a sign to investors that the country will remain under steady financial stewardship. 

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

A former World Bank official, Yorio led the design and issuance of sustainable bonds by Mexico and helped push through a markets reform bill meant to boost debt and equity listings by smaller companies.

Ministry Changes

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

AMLO’s first finance minister, Carlos Urzua, resigned barely a half year into the job after repeated disagreements with the president over personnel and policy. Urzua became a critic of the administration, publicly backing 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 to take over the central bank in 2021. But months later AMLO named Victoria Rodriguez, a treasury official, to lead Banco de Mexico, a surprise decision that sent the peso plunging.

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

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