February 12, 2007
INTERNATIONAL BRIEFS
FUND MANAGERS FAVOR MEXICO
OVER BRAZIL
By: Jane Bussey
For private equity investors, the bulls are running in
Mexico.
A poll of private equity fund managers taken at a conference in Miami
last week showed the financial strategists favoring investments in
Mexico over
Brazil
for the first time.
The number of fund managers interested in investing money in deals in Mexico
rose from 34 percent last year to 47 percent in 2007. Interest in investing in
Brazil
dwindled from 43 percent in 2006 to 28 percent this year.
The poll was taken by KPMG, the
U.S.
audit, tax and advisory firm, which surveyed 124 private equity stakeholders who attended The Economist's Ninth Annual Conference on Latin American Private Equity that was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Coconut Grove on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Jean-Pierre Trouillot, a Miami-based partner in KPMG's Transaction Services practice, said
Mexico
has been actively promoting private investment.
'Minority investor protections have been strengthened, income laws have been reformed to make domestic trusts easier to operate and more transparent, and there has been a consolidation in the country's four development banks' funds,'' Trouillot said.
In private-equity investment, funds hold a stake directly in private companies and earn profits for the fund investors when they sell their shares, usually on the short term.
The KPMG poll found that the time horizon continues to shrink with 77 percent of private equity managers saying they expected to realize a return on investments in less than five years, compared to 55 percent last year and only 46 percent in 2005.
Popular among private equity investments are communications and transportation infrastructure and financial services.
REAL ESTATE
TAURUS TO DEVELOP ARGENTINE
TECH PARK
Taurus Investment Holdings, an owner and operator of worldwide commercial real estate, announced the development of the
Austral
Technology Park near Buenos Aires. Taurus Investment, which is based in Boston
and Deerfield Beach, said its regional subsidiary Taurus Americas will develop the technology park, which is the first of its kind in
Argentina.
The commercial real estate operator said it planned a total investment of $100 million. In the first phase, the company will invest $15 million in the park's infrastructure and in the buildings of the first four companies to occupy the park.
Argentina
's Austral
University
is working with Taurus to create the technology park. As a first step, Taurus Investment and the university are interviewed and selecting companies from a pool of multinational chemical, communications, information technology and pharmaceutical firms. Companies located in the Austral
Technology Park
will be granted tax exemption status and receive subsidies because this is a national strategic initiative. The park's website is www.parqueaustral.org.
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