RGanek Studies and Tours LatAM

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CEO of Intercorp: Peru's greatest resource is its young people

It's hard for a human capital nerd like me not to love this. In his presentation at CADE 2013, CEO of Intercorp, Carlos Rodriguez Pastor highlighted the importance of empowering Peruvians under 30.

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Intercorp is not just a financial services firm we are visiting, it is a portfolio of 19 companies ranging from a stock brokerage firm to a pharmacy chain. Another one of their investments? A private school system. To design system from scratch they partnered with IDEO. Check out this fascinating article about the process and the results!

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Arauco's Recent Land Sale

Aurauco recently posted the following press release on it's website (http://www.arauco.cl/noticias.asp?idq=4758&tipo=2&parent=0):

"January 2015, Sale of Forest Land

Celulosa Arauco subsidiary, Forestal Arauco, sold 56 forest plots located in Chile’s central southern area for about US$ 90 million. The total surface adds up to nearly 11,000 productive hectares. In keeping with the company’s management strategy of its forestry assets, the company acquires what is needed for its operations and sells what is non essential when conditions are beneficial. This transaction refers to plots located farther away from the company’s production facilities. The plots sold account for approximately 1% of ARAUCO’s total forestland. The operation includes a contract establishing the general terms and conditions of their sale and an options contract for the purchase and sale of pulp log volume sourced from these plots."

1% is a lot of valuable land to give up. It would be interesting to hear their perspective on this strategy. Who is the buy with $90M to spend on that much forest?

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The rebuilding of Chile's Constitución: how a 'dead city' was brought back to life

Five years on from the 2010 earthquake, Gideon Long visits the city flattened by a tsunami to find out how a unique collaboration is driving Constitución’s recovery

Check out this article about the collaboration between government, citizens, and Arauco to rebuild after a natural disaster. It had success, but still gave rise to this amazing soundbite: “The scarcest resource by far in cities is not money, it’s coordination.”

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Not Just Chilean Malls, but Chilean Retailers Buy in Peru

I figured if I were going to look at malls, I should also look at retailers. The parent company SACI Falabella operates departments stores, home improvement stores, supermarkets, and a bank. It's interesting that the second biggest retailer in Chile would buy a chain of stores in Peru, just before the third largest mall owner in Chile would be two malls in Peru.

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Parque Arauco S.A. Acquires 100% of Ekimed S.A.C.

Parque Arauco Owns 762,800 m2 of GLA in Latin America

Between its 6 regional shopping centers, 3 outlet malls and 11 strip centers in Chile; 2 regional shopping centers in Colombia; and now 6 regional shopping centers, 5 neighborhood centers, outlet mall and strip center, in Peru, PARA has a total Gross Leasable Area about the size of three (3!) King of Prussia malls (the largest mall in the U.S.). Yikes. That's a lot of shopping.