It has been announced that the Guatemalan bank has acquired assets belonging to the Honduran group estimated at $108 million.
As part of the process of forced liquidation of Banco Continental, which began on October 12, the Bank founded in Guatemala acquired 32% of the assets, which has an estimated total value of $225 million.
A law in Honduras allows the government to use state resources to raise funds to pay domestic debt.
"The attitude of Congress is irresponsible in dealing with these issues without beforehand consulting taxpayers who pay for these commitments with their taxes , nor conversing with civil society organizations," said Fernando Garcia, director of the National Association of Manufacturers (Andi).
Rumors are that the U.S. Federal Reserve is preparing to reduce its bond purchase program, motivating the sale of bonds in emerging markets.
"A rise in bond yields in developed markets and a better prognosis for the U.S. economy are making bonds from the emerging countries, from Turkey to Chile, seem less attractive. On Friday, currencies, bonds and shares in these markets fell significantly," noted an article in Wsj.com.
Companies are placing increasing emphasis on the value of their intellectual property, so it is necessary to design the right strategy to protect it.
The first recommendation in an article by Paola Castro Montealegre in Elfinancierocr.com, stresses how important it is that "intellectual property must be protected at the start of the business and not at the stage of the final product, which is often when we care about our protection, regardless of the fact that products or creations have probably been known about by several people and are potentially vulnerable, and we might even have intellectual property assets already on the market and positioned, without it being possible to protect them, because it hadn’t been thought about from this perspective. '
With gold as a prime example, the recommendation to protect purchasing power is to diversify by acquiring natural resource assets, particularly productive land.
Although the European crisis has shown that despite the enormity of the U.S’s public debt, bonds that back it still have the confidence of many investors, the dollar as a reserve asset raises many doubts.
Investment in art has always been a good alternative to more traditional asset investment, so it is important to consider the variables that define value.
Adolfo Goldberg collector and owner of the gallery Enmarcarte in Costa Rica, and has contributed an excellent article on the subject to Elfinancierocr.com.
"... some works reach values beyond comprehension.
A company's knowledge, brand, culture and reputation are just as valuable as its material assets.
One of the challenges companies face in today's competitive world has to do with how to quantify and value the assets they possess, but that often pass unnoticed because they cannot be measured in any conventional way.
Gustavo Manrique Sala for Prensa.com comments that, "consultants, academics and professionals all agree that in the coming years those companies whose business strategies incorporate the development of their intangible assets as a critical factor in achieving success".
The company is considering whether to monetize its Central American investments.
In a recent conference call Keith Trent, president of the company’s Commercial Businesses organization, was asked about which assets might be monetized and where. He responded that the company, “looks at the returns on assets and opportunities for reinvestment”.
Currently the company has two thermal energy plants in El Salvador and three in Guatemala.
Honduran banks reported $11.3 billion in assets at the end of 2008, an increase of 11%.
The National Banking and Insurance Commission reported the results for 2008, in which Bac-Bamer Bank topped the list with $1.8 billion in assets, followed by Atlantida Bank with $1.6 billion and Ficohsa with $1.55 billion.
Private banking in Honduras completed the first semester of 2008 with assets worth $10.74 billion, with first place going to the recently merged BAC-Bamer Bank.
This was revealed in the June report of the National Committee of Banks and Insurance (CNBS) which gathers information for the Financial Institution Supervision System.