Peru: a new kind of corporate tax
As Google, Starbucks and Amazon have learned to their detriment, companies that take advantage of legal tax-avoidance schemes such as the “Dutch sandwich” and the “double Irish” are right up there with bankers in the public’s estimation.
Peru’s tax office, Sunat, has found a way to help make the medicine go down, it seems, giving companies the option of paying part of their tax bill in the form of regional infrastructure works in some of the countries’ poorest regions. Continue reading »
Spain’s economic crisis is writ large in the Inter-American Development Bank’s latest statistics on remittance flows to Latin America.
For years, thousands of Bolivians, Ecuadoreans and Colombians have been among those to seek work in Spain, legally or illegally. Whether young educated professionals, or poor maids, cleaners and construction labourers, these workers could see the advantages of saving Euros that would magically multiply back home into pesos or dollars or bolivianos. Continue reading »
Peru: rolling back on indigenous rights?
One day Ollanta Humala, Peru’s president, is unnerving investors with a hankering for state-run enterprise, the next he is making it easier for miners to push through projects despite community opposition.
According to Reuters, Humala is on the verge of reneging on his key election pledge to give Andean indigenous communities the right to better consultation over mining projects near their homes. Continue reading »
Beefing up PetroPeru… with Repsol?
Ollanta Humala, Peru’s president, likes to keep everyone on their toes when it comes to his ideology.
Having swapped his Hugo Chávez-esque rhetoric for an electorally palatable, Brazilian-inspired centre-left script as easily as if he was changing t-shirts, Humala has once again rattled investors with the suggestion that state-run PetroPeru should get back into oil and gas production by buying Repsol’s assets. Continue reading »
Colombia’s Grupo Sura buys into BBVA Peru pension unit
Grupo Sura of Colombia has acquired a 50 per cent stake in Peru’s BBVA Horizonte pension fund for $514m.
Sura, which snapped up ING’s Latin American pensions assets in 2011 for $3.85bn and already controls another Peruvian pension fund, Integra, named Profuturo AFP, controlled by Scotiabank, as its strategic partner in the deal. Continue reading »
Cementos Argos eyes $1bn share offer
Concrete returns are hard to come by in these troubles times, so Cementos Argos’s $1bn share offering is shaping up to be popular.
Colombia’s leading cement producer increased its profits last year by 5.9 per cent, to $218m, on the back of strong investments in Panama, the United States and Colombia. Continue reading »
Bolivia: calling all gastro-tourists
Tourists associate Bolivia with dizzy heights, blindingly white salt flats and Aymara women in flouncy skirts, plaits and tiny bowler hats. But haute cuisine? Not so much.
Unlike neighbouring Peru, which has pioneered a new Andean cuisine that has charmed Europe and the United States and attracted a valuable new class of tourist – the foodie – to the country, Bolivian “fine dining” tends to mean foreign food.
But Claus Meyer, the chef behind Denmark’s Noma, thrice named the best restaurant in the world, is determined to change that. Continue reading »
Peru intensifies currency fight
For the eighth time in 10 months, Peru’s central bank has raised deposit requirements on dollar-denominated accounts to stem the flow of hot money into its fast-growing economy and dampen currency appreciation. Continue reading »
“Chocolate” and “shortage” should never appear in the same sentence.
But as the Chinese say, in every crisis, there is opportunity.
And as Chinese taste buds are one of the biggest new drivers of global cocoa demand, it’s apt that a merchant bank focused on trade between China and Latin America has identified cocoa as a “very good bet” for long-term investors. Continue reading »
Peru microlender expands into Mexico
Peru’s Grupo ACP, the non-profit majority owner of Mibanco, has continued its aggressive regional expansion with the opening of its first bank in Mexico.
Forjadores de Negocios, a Mexican microlender targeting women, opened its doors as a bank for the first time this month, with ACP as a majority shareholder. Continue reading »
Peru: The South Koreans are coming
A president could use up a lot of time making the rounds of ambassadors’ national day celebrations.
But there is one diplomatic soirée that Ollanta Humala, Peru’s president, and his wife Nadine, never miss – that of South Korea. While much has been made of sizeable investments in resource-rich Peru by China, South Korea, too, has been rapidly increasing its footprint here. Continue reading »
Peru: minting new millionaires
Source: Jockey Plaza
Millionaires might seem like chump change in this age of trillion-dollar deficits and billion-dollar bailouts.
But in Peru, new millionaires are just another indicator of the kind of strong economic growth that prompted the International Monetary Fund to brand the Andean economy shock-resistant. A reverse canary-down-the-mine, if you will. Continue reading »
Assange and Ecuador: strange bedfellows
Of all the countries a freedom-of-information-campaigner might run to for asylum, Ecuador is a strange choice.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Ecuador’s leftist president Rafael Correa know each other – they shared a few jokes during an interview, and in 2010 the Andean country offered Assange refuge from his legal problems.
But when Assange walked through the door of Ecuador’s embassy in London on Tuesday, Assange was overlooking Correa’s worsening record when it comes to respecting freedom of the press. Continue reading »
Bolivia: a bad week for mining
It’s been a bad week for mining in Bolivia.
President Evo Morales’ government moved 600 troops to the site of Glencore’s Colquiri tin mine on Friday after 15 people were wounded in ongoing protests between two sets of miners.
Company miners want to “nationalise” the site, which is already owned by state mining company Comibol, but operated by Glencore. Co-operative miners who want access to more parts of the site oppose the move. Continue reading »
Brazilian billionaires look to Colombia
What’s good enough for Eike Batista, the world’s seventh richest man, is good enough for fellow Brazilian billionaire André Esteves.
Esteves’s BTG Pactual, Brazil’s only listed investment bank, on Thursday joined the investment rush into Colombia, Latin America’s second most populous country, with the $51.9m purchase of Bolsa Y Renta, the country’s biggest stock broker. Continue reading »
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