Edgardo Cantu Delgado | Vector Casa de Bolsa | Video

Transcript

Vector Casa de Bolsa is the largest independent securities broker-dealer in Mexico. The business has a huge network of advisors, assisting more than 32,000 clients, and has established operations around the world. President and CEO Edgardo Cantu Delgado talks more about the company, and the wider economic conditions in Mexico.

World Finance: First tell us more about Vector, how would you define your operation?

Edgardo Cantu Delgado: Vector is a Mexican securities broker dealer, specialised in customer relationships. Our main focus is on providing investment alternatives for high net-worth individuals, also to provide investment process services to institutional investors as well as corporations. Vector also, because of the relationship we have with high net-worth individuals, we are very active in merger and acquisition business. We also provide advisory services for clients for finance and equity activities.

“The client relationship is our main differentiation element”

World Finance: And what makes you different from your competitors?

Edgardo Cantu Delgado:I would say that the client relationship and this specialisation are our main differentiation elements. In the kind of business we are, as you know the market moves very fast and in a very unpredictable way, then you need an organisation that is close enough to give you advice and to take advantage of the opportunities, that’s exactly what Vector offers. There’s a basic principle in our operations, that is, to be small enough to keep our real personal relationship with the client, and to be big enough to offer a wide spectrum of investment alternatives to our clients. That’s exactly what Vector offers.

World Finance: I mentioned that you’ve expanded round the world, how wide is your reach today?

Edgardo Cantu Delgado: The original idea of going international started when we established a new company, a broker-dealer company in the United States, with the idea to offer our clients in Mexico the alternative of investing internationally, opening accounts in the US. Later on in 2008, in a very difficult year, you remember this was the year that the financial crisis started, but we always believe that during a crisis there are opportunities and this is a good example of it, we decided to continue this expansion to some other countries in Latin America. The first step was to open some offices in the United States in cities like Miami, New York, or Houston, and later we started opening offices in different countries, today we have offices in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. More recently, we opened an office in Singapore, because we believe we can establish a link between the institutional investors in the South East Asia region and Latin America. We also opened an office in Geneva in Switzerland, because again, what we want to offer our clients is different platforms to invest, one locally, one in the United States, and another in Europe or, why not, in Asia. In this way now Vector is the only Latin American financial company that has clients in more than 20 countries.

“Mexico is in very good shape financially speaking”

World Finance: Despite this expansion you’re still very much a Mexican company, tell us what you think of the country’s economy right now

Edgardo Cantu Delgado: Mexico is in very good shape financially speaking, Mexico has a very solid and sound condition. This is a combination of correct fiscal and monetary policies. Mexico has some other very attractive characteristics, like at the end, Mexico is still a very young country, we have a young and growing population. Mexico is growing if you compare what is happening with some other countries in Europe or the US, Mexico among the emerging markets is one of the countries that is growing better and we expect that in the next year we can improve the way Mexico is growing. But on the other hand, we also have some challenges, and we believe that there are some reforms needed in order that the favourable conditions that we have in the macro-economics could be transferred to the micro part of the economy.

“This is a very good time to invest in Mexico”

World Finance: Now some economic analysts are saying that Mexico is in fashion now to invest in, what’s your view on this?

Edgardo Cantu Delgado: That’s true. The combination of some elements like public and private financial conditions, the deficit in Mexico is very low, we also have a very diversified and open economy, Mexico has established trade agreements with many countries since maybe 20 years ago, and Mexico also establishes new ways to grow. With the new administration, with President Pena Nieto, they achieved an agreement, a very important political agreement among the three main parties, through this agreement they will be looking to establish new reforms in strategic sectors, like education, energy etcetera. With these reforms, we expect that the positive effect on the economy could be very attractive, with potential growth, with better education, with less informal employment, and more competitiveness. In summary I could say Nick that this is a very good time to invest in Mexico, as well as in some other countries in Latin America, and I could say that Vector is the best option for global investors to look for investment opportunities in this attractive region of the world.

World Finance: Edgardo, thank you.

Edgardo Cantu Delgado: Nick, thank you very much for this opportunity.