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- After the shareholders’ meeting held in Colombia, Chile and Peru, the shareholders of the three market places gave their approval to this process after three years of preparation.
- The integration implies, among other activities, implementing a common platform that standardizes the operating conditions and rules in the three countries, creating value for the markets, participants, the economies and shareholders.
After a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits that the Regional Integration will bring to the capital markets of Colombia, Chile and Peru, today the shareholders’ meeting of the BVL Group (holding company of the Lima Stock Exchange) approved the regional process integration, which had already been approved by the shareholders' meeting of the Santiago Stock Exchange (BCS) and the Colombian Securities Exchange (BVC), held on January 26th and 31st, respectively.
Thus, the green-light is given to a project that the management of the three entities have been developing for more than three years and that includes the integration of the property of the three Exchanges and their subsidiaries -in addition to the trading and clearing platforms of each of them- through the creation of a new Regional Holding, which will have its headquarters in Chile, where the shares of the Santiago Stock Exchange and the Colombian Securities Exchange will have a 40% stake in the share swap respectively, while the shares of the Lima Stock Exchange will represent 20% of the remaining capital.
The Chairman of the Santiago Stock Exchange, Juan Andres Camus, highlighted the approval process and pointed out "the integration of these three stock marketplaces is a milestone in the Latin American Capital Market history, a necessary step to achieve greater competitiveness against global players and position ourselves as an attractive worldwide landmark for investors”.
Furthermore, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Colombian Securities Exchange, Mauricio Rosillo, pointed out “shareholders find that this is a transaction in which they want to continue to be represented, because it generates value for participants as well as investors, integrating markets that complement each other and need to continue growing”.
Finally, the Chairwoman of the BVL Group, Claudia Cooper, emphasize, “with no doubt this decision, taken unanimously, marks a milestone for the marketplaces, granting them greater scope and moving towards greater efficiency. Likewise, this integration makes us organizations and marketplaces with greater capacity to offer better financing and investing conditions for companies and the people.”
It should be noted that, along with the approval of the shareholders of the Colombian, Lima and Santiago Stock Exchanges, the authorizations of the regulatory entities in each country are required, and the formalization of the transaction may be extended until mid-2022.
Integration Process began in 2018
The regional integration process began in 2018, when, through the formation of a tripartite and multidisciplinary team made up of members of the Exchanges management, a pre-feasibility analysis was carried out, considering the experiences and lessons learned from the launch of the Integrated Market of Latin American (MILA), evaluated the options for greater integration of the three countries marketplaces. Thus, the work was carried out in the search for greater development of the regional marketplace, through a standardization of business models that would allow the generation of technological and operational synergies, among other aspects already mentioned.
Over the following years, the work continued on this challenge, a period in which the hiring of an international investment bank expert in asset valuation was managed, with the aim of preparing an independent valuation report of the three companies, taking another step in the process of evaluation and analysis for the integration of the infrastructure and services of the three marketplaces, advances that later allowed the agreements to be adopted in relation to the materialization of the process for which a law firm with presence in the three countries was hired.
