The Colombia (BVC), Lima (BVL) and Santiago (BCS) stock exchanges will integrate fully in 2025, Juan Pablo Córdoba, General Manager of the Regional Holding announced this Thursday (Aug. 31) at a virtual press conference.
Currently, the three bourses operate independently but aim to create a single market with the corporate integration into a single body taking an estimated 18 to 24 months. Their integration had started in 2018.
At an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting held on Thursday, they elected a board of directors consisting of six Colombians, six Chileans, three Peruvians, and one Brazilian. Juan Andrés Camus was appointed chairman, and Juan Pablo Córdoba – currently president of the Colombian stock exchange – was confirmed as general manager.
Vice president of the Holding, José Fernando Romero, noted that the three stock exchanges represent a potentially more attractive market for world investments, with a market of 100 million people.
The main purpose of the Holding is to increase liquidity and make the market more competitive, said Camus who added that a more liquid market for investors tends to minimize differences.
Only the registration of the holding company’s shares in the three stock markets remains to conclude the entity’s creation.
The BVC, BVL and BCS joined together to begin operation of the Mercado Integrado Latinoamericano, more commonly known as MILA in 2011. The Mexican stock exchange joined in 2014. Through the unification of their platforms, the four countries were seeking to give investors a greater supply of securities, issuers and also larger sources of funding.
Mila was not a full integration of capital markets as the different currencies, tax regimes, commissions, and investment rules of each country still apply. All markets maintained their own domestic clearing houses.
This recent initiative can be considered as the brother of this merger as it showed the potential of a bigger market and can support entrepreneurship, and contribute to the countries’ economic development.