Aureos Capital's Emerge Central America Growth Fund has signed a co-operation agreement with Carlos Mora de la Orden, authorised sponsor of the Mercado Alternativo para Acciones (Mapa), Costa Rica's junior stock market.

Mapa was created by Costa Rica's main stock market, the Bolsa Nacional de Valores, to help fund small companies with growth potential. The Emerge fund is one of three Aureos Latin American private equity funds and is targeted at the smaller end of the SME segment in Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Belize and the Dominican Republic.

Under the agreement, the Emerge fund will receive preferential access to invest in Mapa-sponsored companies by Mora de la Orden, which will also inform Emerge about companies with good growth potential that have not yet joined the exchange. The Emerge fund will register such companies with Mapa following its investment in order to obtain additional financing or to realise a sale.

'This is a great opportunity for us,' says Emerge fund manager José Ulate. 'The fact that Mapa provides a scheme that allows for an exit facilitates the job of the Emerge fund as it brings liquidity to the market. We anticipate many excellent investment opportunities to arise through our referral agreement with Mapa.'

Aureos Central America Managers will refer to Mapa companies that the fund has invested in and that could benefit from joining the market, either to secure new financing or from a sale to other investors. The firm may also refer companies in which the fund wants to invest with the aim of carrying out the investment through the Mapa platform.

'The Aureos Emerge fund will not only refer potential companies to Mapa, but it will also be able to invest through it,' says Mora de la Orden. 'This creates a mutually beneficial relationship which we believe will be valuable to Aureos and help catalyse further investment in smaller Costa Rican companies.'

Mauritius-domiciled Aureos Capital specialises in providing expansion and buy-out capital to unlisted mid-cap businesses in Asia, Africa and Latin America. It was formed in July 2001 to take over management of a range of funds originally sponsored by the UK's state-owned CDC Group and to raise a new generation of private equity funds. The firm is owned by its employees and by CDC Group, Norfund and FMO, respectively the UK, Norwegian and Dutch development finance institutions.

Since 2001, Aureos has increased its funds under management to more than USD710m and extended its geographical footprint to some 50 emerging markets through 14 regional private equity funds. Investors include institutions, bilateral and multilateral development finance institutions, fund of funds, family offices and foundations and high net worth individuals. Aureos is in the process of raising funds for the USD100m Aureos Central Asia Fund, the USD300m Aureos Latin America Fund and the USD400m Aureos Africa Fund.

       

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