Ecopetrol will be traded as securities known as ADRs–American Depositary Receipts–on the New York Stock Exchange as soon as October, estimate analysts consulted by El Colombiano.
Since the 57-year-old company sold 10 percent of its shares to the public a year ago, the stock price has jumped from $0.75 to $1.34. And in just the first six months of 2008, profits before taxes, depreciation and amortization grew 76 percent, the newspaper reported.
Ecopetrol follows in the path of Bancolombia, which entered the New York Stock Exchange in 1995 and has since seen its market capitalization grow by a factor of 12, according to El Colombiano. And production is up 12 percent over last year, says Latin Business Chronicle.
The positive numbers mark a sharp turnaround for Ecopetrol, which just a few years ago was just another of the region’s many under performers, reports the Chronicle.
Ecopetrol “has been one of the star performers among state oil companies” in the region, Patrick Esteruelas, an analyst with The Eurasia Group,told the Chronicle.
But the good news may well prove bitter to some 2,000 Colombians who La Republica reports recently lost their Ecopetrol shares due to failure to make promised payments. Roughly 9,300 others still have time to pay up.