Mexican finance leaders plan stock exchange reform to stanch exodus
08/09/2022 22:47
By Carolina Pulice
MEXICO CITY, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Mexico's government and
financial institutions will propose a bill this month to change
current rules, aiming to attract companies to the country's
stock exchange by making it easier to access debt and equities
markets, the head of the country's stock market association told
Reuters.
Mexico's main BMV stock exchange BOLSAA.MX is seeking to
lure IPOs. Recently, several prominent companies decided to
de-list their shares from the exchange. These include brokerage
Monex MONEXB.MX , airline Aeromexico MONEXB.MX and Carlos
Slim's retailer Sanborns GSANBORB1.MX . urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2ZZ28V
The executive president of the Mexican Association of Stock
Market Institutions (AMIB), Alvaro Garcia Pimentel, told Reuters
the institution is working to propose a bill that would allow
smaller companies to list debts and equities more quickly and at
lower cost.
"We built this project so smaller companies could issue debt
and receive the same fiscal treatment as public offers for debts
and equities," he said, saying rates would be more competitive
and financing longer-term.
He said the proposal, put together with the government and
the BMV and BIVA stock exchanges, should be presented to
Congress this month.
Mexico's Finance ministry said it is "working closely with
the BMV to strengthen (the country's) financial market."
BMV and BIVA did not immediately respond to a request for
comment, though the CEO of BIVA spoke of the planned reform at a
conference last week.
Garcia told Reuters the groups would likely create another
proposal, this time focusing on hedge funds.
"This would create a new law allowing funds to participate
through hedging operations, derivatives and direct leverage," he
said, saying AMIB was in talks with the government.
Luis Gonzali, an institutional asset manager, said if the
bill passes it would not only attract new companies but make
Mexico's financial market more "dynamic."
"The measure would to a certain extent mitigate what we have
seen for many years: a trend of de-listing and few companies
participating in Mexico's financial sector," he added.
(Reporting by Carolina Pulice in Mexico City
Editing by Sarah Morland and Matthew Lewis)
((Carolina.Pulice@thomsonreuters.com;))