Category: 2020 Q4

Dear Reader, What is normal? Certainly not the year 2020. Normally, at this time of year, we would all hope to be able to pull up our chairs to a dinner table laden with food, surrounded by family and friends to toast holidays, love, friendship, milestones, and more. Sadly, for too many of us the […]

Interview with Andre Silva Head of Latin America DCM at BNP Paribas The COVID-19 pandemic impact on Latin America’s primary bond markets in 2020 was deep and widespread, dictating much of the decisions behind both sovereign and corporate issues, said Andre Silva, head of Latin American DCM at BNP Paribas. Sovereign issuers had to adapt, relaxing […]

Interview with Will LandersHead of Latin American Equities at BTG Pactual Asset Management In the emerging market equity space, Latin America stood out in 2020, but for the wrong reasons. The sector underperformed its emerging market peers by a wide margin through the end of November. But it was in November when that seemed to change, much […]

Interview with Jose Ignacio Valdez Managing Director and Head of Investment Banking for Latin America at Scotiabank Mergers and acquisitions activity suffered in the last quarter of 2020, however a clutch of big ticket deals in the tail end of the year suggested some companies had dusted off their expansion plans and began to look ahead […]

Interview with Michael Jakob Managing Director Global Emerging Markets Loan Syndication at Credit Suisse  Latin America’s loan volumes in the last quarter of 2020, not surprisingly, are on track to be below the same period last year. However, there is growing pricing pressures in several sectors that indicate activity and competition for loans is heating up. […]

The advance of fintechs over the past few years has forced Latin America’s banks to close branches and invest in digital technology, a transformation sped up by the COVID-19 pandemic as more people bank and pay online.  When Juan Parma talks about banking, it’s almost like he’s running a fintech. Agility, efficiency and customer-friendly technology […]

The shock of the global pandemic lasted only so long in the world of finance. Mergers and acquisitions activity in Latin America was blunted in 2020 as deal making went virtual, by and large, but activity began to pick up by the second half.   The arrival of COVID-19 put mergers and acquisitions activity on hold […]

Demand is up for metals as stimulus money pumped into economies to counteract the COVID-19 pandemic has companies looking under every rock for sought after minerals. Will the new found demand bulldoze or bolster increased requirements for investing with environmental, social and governance criteria?  For mining economies that find themselves in a deep, pandemic-induced fiscal […]

The Inter-American Development Bank’s new president joined the multilateral lender not without some controversy. Mauricio Claver-Carone tells LatinFinance in an interview about his agenda to boost capital for bigger lending plans and a bigger involvement of the United States in the region. Channeling more resources towards Latin America and the Caribbean, reviving Pan-Americanism, and rekindling […]