Three to six companies are expected to debut on the Lima Stock Exchange this year as an association with the bourses of Bogota and Santiago makes a new regional market more attractive to investors, the CEO of the Peruvian exchange said on Friday.
More Peruvian companies are expected to sell stocks in initial public offerings as they need financing to keep up with the fast pace of economic growth in the country, Francis Stenning said.
He expects the future Mercado Integrado Latinoamericano, or MILA, which links the three exchanges, to start operating in the first week of May after a trial period. Its market size will be the second-largest in Latin America after Brazil, driving liquidity higher. "I think that in the medium term volumes will pick up to a level that ... should be higher than Mexico's. We would like to be the second ones," Stenning told Reuters in an interview.
Peru was one of the world's fastest-growing economies in 2010, with gross domestic product expansion of 8.8 percent. The central bank expects GDP to grow close to 7 percent this year, boosted by commodity exports and rising domestic consumption. The strong growth outlook has been attracting new foreign investors into the country. The Carlyle Group, an asset manager with $97.7 billion, and Credicorp, Peru's largest investment fund with $17.5 billion, on Friday announced a joint venture to invest in Peruvian companies.
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