Davivienda Financial Group takes control of HSBC

Bank plans to expand operations in El Salvador, Honduras and Panama.

Colombian bank Davivienda took over this week HSBC Bank operations in Costa Rica, after formalizing the acquisition of its shares last Friday.

Davivienda’s total investment was $300 million for all companies and businesses belonging to Grupo Financiero HSBC in the country, including a stock brokerage firm and an insurance agency.

Efraín Forero, president of the group, believes that Costa Rica is “promised land” for foreign companies in Central America and Colombia. He also confirmed the bank plans to approve personal loans or mortgages “within minutes.”

Davivienda is developing a strategy called “multilatina,” with $25 billion in assets, placing it 26th in the ranking of Latin American banks.

After the Costa Rica venture, the company plans to open businesses in El Salvador, Honduras and Panama.

HSBC’s 800 employees will remain at their jobs.

Posted by Costa Developers

7th annual theater festival upon us

costadevelopers.com

Performances and workshops taking place across the city.

The Little Theatre Group will put on "Looking for the Pony" during the Festival of National Theater this month.

The first 28 days of October mark the nation’s seventh annual Festival of National Theater, or the Encuentro Nacional de Teatro.  This year’s festival also overlaps with the Central American Showcase.

Founded in 2005 by a group of people from different theater institutions, the Encuentro Nacional de Teatro seeks to promote theater in Costa Rica through screening performances from different national theater groups and providing theater workshops at both the professional and amateur level.

This year’s event will feature national performances, workshops and discussions in the city’s main theaters, Melico Salazar, Teatro La Aduana and Teatro 1887 del CENAC. As part of the Central American Showcase, there will also be shows from Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panamá.

Posted by Costa Developers

COSTA RICA IN THE FOURTH PLACE IN LATIN AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS RANKING.

 

A study by the ADEN Business School located in Costa Rica as a leader in health systems.

The fourth country with more competitiveness in Latin America by 2012 is Costa Rica and is part of a bloc of countries rated as "very good competitive level, with advances and developments in particular in infrastructure, technology and macroeconomic stability." This was stated by a study of ADEN Business School which included 18 countries in the region.

This work analyzed ten variables: coverage of basic needs, institutional, macroeconomic stability, health, education, expectations of the population, market competition, efficiency in industrial relations and access to technology.

The ranking was led by Chile, with a grade of 81.4 out of 100 followed by Panama, and Mexico with 76 to 72. Costa Rica is ranked as the fourth country with 71.8 points out of 100.

The assessment provided details as to Chile was a leader in provision of basic needs, institutional and macroeconomic stability. For its part, Costa Rica leads the ranking in health and was second in education, which was surpassed only by a tenth percentage from Argentina. In the ranking of the 2011 Costa Rica was in the fifth.

The study also included the country in a "group of countries" which also includes Mexico, Uruguay and Brazil, which occupied the seats on the third and sixth on the list. These four countries, according to the analysis, have similar characteristics and competitiveness is separated by a few percentage points.

Costa Rica and Uruguay went up a position in the ranking, displacing to Brazil, the largest economy in Latin America. The report concludes by noting that in general the whole Latin American region rose. However, he found a weak Central America in competitiveness, Costa Rica and Panama are very strong in opposition.

Costa Developers