Unifin’s strong corporate governance ensures its sustainability, says CFO

Transcript

Operating leasing firm Unifin went public in 2015, with a highly successful IPO on the Mexican Bolsa. But in preparation for this, the company radically enhanced its board, and made sure to adopt best corporate governance practices. CFO Sergio Camacho discusses this process, as well as how Unifin ensures good transparency with its shareholders, and its outlook for the years ahead. Watch the first half of this interview, where Sergio discusses Unifin’s success supporting Mexico’s SMEs.

Sergio Camacho: Unifin is the leading independent leasing company in Latin America. We are a public company; we made our IPO in 2015. And since then the company has shown tremendous growth.

World Finance: And why has corporate governance become so important to Unifin?

Sergio Camacho: We need to analyse corporate governance prior to doing the IPO, and after doing the IPO. When Rodrigo Lebois decided to go and make Unifin public, he started to enhance its board. He asked very well respected entrepreneurs in the country to join the board. And now we have 50 percent of that board to be independent.

When we did the IPO, that was one of the key questions that we received from investors. How’s your corporate governance? Who is on your board? Because being a new company into the market, for a leasing business, posted a real challenge to have a very successful IPO – which, by the way, it was. And corporate governance played a very very strong point for getting the trust of investors.

World Finance: How has your corporate governance changed over recent years, and do you have further improvements planned?

Sergio Camacho: Whatever is released as best corporate governance practice, we for sure are going to be implementing that.

Particularly when you hear many many things on Latin America, and some often think Mexico needs to comply even further – that will be the US, in this matter.

In Mexico, the business council release their best corporate governance practices, and we comply 100 percent with those.

We are subject of course to the banking commission supervision, and we’re a very transparent company. We have put a lot of effort in enhancing corporate governance, because of this.

So whatever is released, or suggested to be a best corporate governance practice in the future – for sure we’re going to implement in the company.

World Finance: How do you make sure that you are as transparent as possible with your shareholders?

Sergio Camacho: Well we have on a quarterly basis our press release and our conference calls. We attend, perhaps twice a quarter, different conferences or do these non-deal roadshows. And that’s a way that we communicate to our shareholders and to our bondholders. Because one of the most important ways that the company has financed itself over the last years has been issuing in the public markets.

So Unifin is in the spotlight in that regard – we have accessed over the last 24 months more than $1.2bn in the international markets. So the trust is there – we need to fulfil that trust now, so we need to continue, keep working. Because these are things that matter, and matter a lot to our, either shareholders or bondholders.

World Finance: And what would you say is the investor outlook for Unifin?

Sergio Camacho: I would say it’s very strong, very positive. If we analysed the numbers of Unifin over the last three years, we have had compounded annual growth rate of 50 percent, at revenues and profits. Since the IPO the stock has more than doubled its value.

So the outlook for the company looks promising. Of course it’s going to be driven by the political views and the economic policies to be implemented in the coming years. We have the threat of Nafta – there is a lot of uncertainty right now, what is going to be Nafta.

But no matter what the outcome of those two major events are, Unifin is very strong. Unifin has been in the market through difficult times, and has been successful going through. So we’re confident that we’re going to be capable of addressing good results, good numbers, in the upcoming years.

World Finance: Sergio, thank you very much.

Sergio Camacho: Thank you.