Shares of new companies have been listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV), but as a result of mergers and splits. They did it directly, without having launched or held an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
The five stations that reached the stock market in the last two years were the result of a reorganization of the companies, that is, the assets were already part of other companies. In this group are Acosta Verde, Controladora Nemak, Sempra Energy, Alterna Asesoría Internacional and more recently Sitios Latinoamérica.
These companies placed their shares through direct listings, a mechanism by which they start trading on the Stock Market without having carried out an IPO among the investing public, but through an exchange or exchange of shares, so they do not raise capital.
However, its performance in the stock market has been mixed. Sitios Latinoamérica, which trades under the ticker Lasite, was listed on the BMV in September 2022, after América Móvil spun off its telecommunications tower business located in 16 Latin American countries and created this company.
But Lasite, which is part of the main stock index of the BMV, the S&P/BMV IPC, has had a negative performance, its shares have fallen 46.09 percent.
Sempra (SRE) shares were listed on the BMV on May 28, 2021, after the merger of IEnova with one of its subsidiaries to create Sempra Infrastructure Partners dedicated to the energy infrastructure business. Since its start of listing, its papers have yielded 18 percent.
The shares of Alterna Asesoría that arose from the business spin-off of Grupo Financiero Actinver that offers investment banking and financing services to Mexican and foreign companies, accumulate a yield of 43.75% to trade at 1.15 pesos since June 1, 2020, when it started trading in the market and until this Wednesday.
Out of moves
In October 2020, Acosta Verde, the shopping center developer, listed its shares on the Mexican Stock Exchange and became the first public company to emerge from the business combination of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company. Company or SPAC) of Promecap, owned by businessman Fernando Chico Pardo.
However, the negotiation of the real estate firm is flat and does not register movements, according to information from the BMV. Each title was traded at 179.99 pesos per unit on its first day of listing.
The listing of Controladora Nemak was canceled from the Mexican stock market, the firm ceased to exist and its shareholders now became Nemak investors, after having received titles from the auto parts company in exchange.
The arrival of these new companies to the Mexican Stock Exchange contrasts with the registered delisting of 14 issuers since 2019.
Added to this situation is a deserted IPO market since November 2017, when the last share placement was held in said stock exchange, that of Grupo México Transporte, a subsidiary of the rail transport business of the mining giant Grupo México.
It was spun off from América Móvil
Latam sites lose 46% since its debut on the BMV
The shares of Sitios Latinoamérica (Sitios Latam) have lost almost 20% since the company spun off from América Móvil (AMX) began trading on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV) on September 28.
This Wednesday, its titles were listed at 8.90 pesos, a drop of 46.09% compared to the price with which it began to trade (16.51 pesos per share). In contrast, AMX shares have risen 5.78% since Sitios Latam went public, trading at 18.11 pesos.
Valentín Mendoza, Associate Director of Stock Market Research at Actinver Casa de Bolsa, said that the drop in the shares of Sitios Latam does not mean that the spin-off has failed, since it was not a decision made “with a business view.”
He said that the multiples of the telephone tower business are higher than that of the rest of AMX, “because they have very predictable flows – coming from rents – and have practically no operating expenses.”
In August, América Móvil reported that it had completed the spin-off of its tower and infrastructure business in Latin America, which would create a new company called Sitios Latinoamérica.
The S&P rating agency said in a note that Sitios Latam will operate around 29,000 telecommunications towers, and Brazil will be its largest market, with América Móvil as its main client.
Valentín Mendoza said that despite the losses that the company has had in the BMV during its first months of listing, the perspective is “positive”, since its valuations are very cheap. On November 25, S&P assigned Sitios Latam a BB+ global scale rating, lower than América Móvil’s A-.
“We expect Sitios Latam to focus on deleveraging its capital structure, which would bring its debt to EBITDA ratio below 5.0x (times) by the end of 2023,” the rating agency said when the telecommunications tower company was listed.
