Colombia may list another 200 companies on its exchange within a decade as an integration with Peru and Chile spurs investor demand, said Cristian Moreno, head of Latin American equity research at Santander in New York.
Colombia, which accounts for 7.8 percent of Latin America’s listed companies compared with 17.5 percent for Peru, has listed 49 companies with a market capitalization of over $100 million each, Moreno said. Transport, commerce and manufacturing companies are “underrepresented” in the market, he said.
“Integration could be an important step towards an IPO boom in Colombia,” Moreno told investors at a Council of the Americas event in New York. “There are many companies with sufficient size to be listed.”
Colombia, Chile and Peru will integrate their exchanges at the end of November, Colombia stock exchange President Juan Pablo Cordoba said at the event. The integrated market will be Latin America’s top issuer with a total 563 stocks, and second in market capitalization with $564 billion, behind Brazil with $1.28 trillion, he said.
Companies including Banco Colpatria, paper manufacturer Carvajal SA, Renault SA’s Colombian assembly unit and sweets manufacturer Colombina SA may list to tap increased access to investors through the integrated exchange, said Rupert Stebbings, head of the Colombian unit of Chilean brokerage Celfin Capital SA.
“Some smaller companies may merge first before going to the market,” Stebbings said in a telephone interview. “With a large market to issue into, there are a lot of firms here that could list.”
Colombia’s IGBC Index rose 1.6 percent to 14,927.93 today, while the Colcap Index increased 1.6 percent to 1,794.73. (Fabiola Moura & Alex Emery / Bloomberg)