Latin America

“Clearly Asia generates a fair amount of innovative companies relative to Latin America and Eastern Europe, Middle East Africa.”

“You also have some highly innovative companies like Mercado Livre, which is the leader in e-commerce in Latin America, trading at 100 times earnings, 90 times earnings, but these are growing earnings at 40, 50% a year.”

“So you've seen a lot of talented entrepreneurs who were originally from Latin America, who moved to San Francisco or New York, all moving home to do startups, because now there's capital that you can fund businesses.”

“Normally we're like, we don't have the, in a positive sense, the ambition that you guys have, like to do things that are at a global scale. So when we began doing business a long time ago, we would think maybe smaller than we should, and just having the capaci…”

“Venezuela was traditionally one of the most profitable markets in Latin America in every industry. When we were working in telecoms, margins in telecoms company was like, 40%. The rest of the region was 25. Food was the same, and we still see it to date.”

“We also lived in Venezuela, where it was at that moment in time, one of the wealthiest countries in the region, and it had one of the longest democratic traditions in the region.”

“Capital markets are not what you have here in the U.S., and so the core of savings and economic power actually lies in families mostly.”

“Today's leftists in America are not the leftists from a generation ago. Again, you learn from your father's mistakes. In Latin America, you talk to guys in Chile and in Colombia and in Mexico, they've learned from Chavez. They've learned from Argentina. They d…”

“We're not going to invest in China. We're not going to invest in the Far East. Not going to go to Latin America. Certainly not Russia. We will only invest in places where the rule of law is recognized.”

“That venture piece is probably split Evenly, roughly, between the U.S. And non-U.S. Most of the non-U.S. In venture is in emerging Asia and Latin America. Little bit in Europe.”

“That leaves me, actually, super bullish to Latin America. It was very interesting that in these tariffs, Latin America was completely spared. Not only did they get a blanket 10%, but pretty much everything they export, whether copper, silver, lithium, et ceter…”

“Still, they're very profitable, 30 to 35% margins, little capex, so they generally, they generate a lot of cash flow, which is also very relevant to us.”

“In most of the economies in Latin America where you go, these are like trophy assets that whomever the owner is, normally families, they don't want to trade it. Having the ability to go into a market which is a little bit overlooked or an empty room, as you sa…”

“And I think, again, like we said at the beginning, this multipolar world, Latin America will certainly be together with the U.S., and that will mean further growth, integration, opportunities.”

“When you look at the latest transactions in the past five, six years in Latin America, all these regional guys have gone from like 10 to 14 times EBITDA. And the going in price for these assets is like seven to eight times EBITDA.”

“So the impact, if you look around the world, which are the regions who are going to be more impacted, Latin America falls under the category of minimal impact.”

“We're the largest wealth manager in Asia. We're the largest wealth manager now in Latin America after our Credit Suisse acquisition. And we're the fourth largest wealth manager in the United States based on assets under management from wealth clients. Also the…”

“And Latin America is obviously important to this administration, so I think there will be a lot of strategic capital looking at Latin America right now, for which I think we are well positioned.”