Chile Says Codelco Not for Sale, Yet

While his government plans the sale of certain state controlled assets to help with earthquake recovery costs, Chilean president Sebastian Pinera says a piece of Codelco is not for sale. “Codelco is different – it is part of our constitution. We need a broad agreement in Chilean society and we don’t have that yet,” he says. A 20% privatization of Codelco was once thought possible. Codelco recently hired JPMorgan, Larrain Vial and Santander to explore alternatives for energy subsidiary E-CL, formerly known as Edelnor. Separately, Pinera says he does not expect Chile to be borrowing too much internationally, despite the firm reception to its recent bond offer. “We will not be an active borrower in the international markets,” he says. When planning the recent $1.5bn sovereign sale, its first in 6 years, officials had said Chile wanted to become a more regular borrower. Pinera spoke at an investor presentation in New York organized by the Council of the Americas.