The nearly four years that BlackRock completed in Colombia, a US firm specialized in investment management, have been sufficient to verify the evolution that the country’s capital market is experiencing, although its directives recognize that it still lacks more depth, diversity of instruments And greater financial education, especially to natural person investor.
Diego Mora, director of BlackRock Colombia, says that in order to achieve progress on these fronts, the country does not need sophisticated and obscure products, nor can it be left with too basic alternatives; So they work in simple options with which they can reach more people, a niche in which they see opportunities and investors every day more mature.
What has been the experience of the firm after four years in Colombia?
We see a capital market evolving positively, and that not only favors us as a company, but also benefits investors, especially natural people, who are increasingly interested in exploring new ways of investing their resources.
How do they measure that impact on company figures?
The local product we have is Icolcap (one of the referents of the Colombian Stock Exchange), which continues to consolidate as the largest fund of Colombian shares worldwide. Today it is slightly below the 900 million dollars, the total value of the portfolio. Now, what Colombians invest in our products abroad has also grown, to the point that today we handle about 8,000 million dollars, although most are from companies.
What has made that figure reach?
The confidence of institutional investors in the index; They are using it for both long and short term positions. But the important thing is that, little by little, natural people have been using it, although the country lacks much more financial education, so that people know what they are and what these tools are for.