BOGOTA. He left the powerful multinational companies to join the entrepreneurial arena. With his investment fund Tribeca, a pioneer in these lands, in a few years he exceeded the goals he had set. And he is going for more. Intelligent, visionary, prudent, landed, the Belgian born in Congo, who knows exactly what he wants and spends his life on a plane, decided to establish Colombia as his base of operations.

Would you get the same respect if, instead of being a worldly foreign man, you where born in Chocó? Because there is a lot of racism in Bogotá.
Probably not, but you have to go to the source of the problem: equality of opportunities. It is unlikely that there are many people from Chocó who have the same education and work experience that I have. If there is one with three masters degrees, who has traveled extensively and has lived in eleven countries and ran a business, I do not think that there would be much resistance. The problem for him is to get to this position on the road, but once he succeeds, we all have the same color; we all are dollar green (laughs).

What is the reason behind the success of your investment fund? Are your managers more skilled than the entrepreneurs who sold their companies? Is it that they get stuck or what?
There are several elements, one comes with experience. You start your business with certain conditions and 99% of the time you spent cooking with these ingredients. Few entrepreneurs, especially in a family business, and not only in Colombia, have the capacity or time to think what other ingredients are there, because they where stuck in the kitchen and it is very difficult to reinvent yourself. As one arrives fresh and has a methodology. In 2 or 3 years each company has to aim to have a certain percentage of its turnover coming from something newly created. Another factor is financial capabilities. In emerging countries there are inefficiencies in capital markets. Money does not flow so it is difficult to find capital to grow.

Have you considered listing your fund in the stock market?
The idea is to list the portfolio companies, not the fund, and this depends on size, because you have to have a certain size.

And do you have plans to enter in other sectors?
Yes, we are raising another fund of US $500 million in Europe. When I started with Tribeca, my thesis was that there was an investment fund market in Colombia: we have done the job, the market is created, and there are twenty competitors that have appeared. Time will tell who will be successful, because only a fraction really is. Now my thesis is that Colombia is the gateway to Latin America, it is a very attractive destination.

Don’t you feel that there is a crisis of political leaders in the world and in the multilateral agencies?
In Europe and in some Latin American countries exist well-prepared leaders. What happens is that there is institutional inertia. What Sarkozy proposes to the Socialists, they will say no. Obama gets blocked in his plans because the Republicans think that the people will say: He does not have decision capabilities, and we win the next election. That is more important to them (than the country).

Do you see an exit in the short-term to the European crisis?
Some say that Europe is going to fall, but Im sure it will recover. For me, what they are living through is a fraction of what happened in the U.S. in 2008. The difference is that Bush and Obama met and in a week said, let's capitalize the banks, and in Europe took four months to make that decision. The crisis will create more agile decision-making mechanisms. When there is a crisis in Africa, getting out of is going to be extremely difficult, people are not prepared to resolve a crisis, there is no state, and there is corruption everywhere. In Europe, the USA and Japan, crises come and go, and for me they are healthy. In Europe the system is too closed, and this will provoke changes. My forecast: the next (to enter into a crisis) is Brazil. In full boom, companies are worth a fortune, but what structural changes have been made in Brazil? They are in the best time of its history, but the financial bubble is such that there will be a correction. You cannot have a more expensive real estate in Brazil than in New York.

What is the biggest obstacle to development in Colombia?
One issue is political courage. A man like Uribe, who lacked political courage, has more lawsuits than Macaco. Nobody doubts the competence of the current administration but, for example, in the case of the students, the reform was good or not? And if it was, why turn back? The Ministry of Transport is very efficient but a single bid process has come out yet because there is a political risk.


Source: La República
Contrapregunta
Salud Hernández-Mora
Page P48