Thursday, March 28, 2024

Logo Central America Link

Foreign investment pumps up in Costa Rica and Panama

Thursday, April 12, 2018


Buyers from the United States and the United Kingdom during the last 90 days paid close to $500 million to acquire two regional businesses.

Earlier this month, London-based Inchcape PLC paid $284 million for Grupo Rudelman, a Panama-based distributor of Suzuki autos, with operations in Panama and Costa Rica.

Inchcape, which manages 30 automotive brands in 31 countries, had 2017 revenue of $12.7 billion.

The company’s shares trade on the London stock exchange.

Last February, United States-based Liberty Latin America paid $200 million for 80% of Cabletica, Costa Rica’s biggest provider of digital television and broadband Internet.

A division of Liberty Global, the largest broadband distributor in the world outside the United States, Liberty Latin America is in 20 countries, including Chile, where it operates under the VTR brand, and in Panama, where it operates as C&W Communications.

The shares of Liberty Latin America trade on the NASDAQ exchange.

Based in Colorado, Liberty Global has over 10,000 employees worldwide.

Cabletica SA provides analog and digital television, broadband Internet, and fixed-line telephony services to residential customers.