21620: MARINA - Haiti's first investment bank to focus on projects for poor (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Marina <marinawus@yahoo.com>
    poor

USA TODAY --Posted 4/29/2004 1:22 AM

Haiti's first investment bank to focus on projects for
poor

By James Cox, USA TODAY
Seventy wealthy Haitians and Haitian-Americans are
launching the island nation's first investment bank,
setting their sights on modest returns to give
priority to projects that will benefit Haiti's poor
masses.

PromoCapital hopes to spend up to $150 million in
Haiti over the next two years, says Henri Deschamps, a
prominent Port-au-Prince printing and media executive
who will chair the bank.

"People are quite fed up with Haiti being in constant
upheaval, as are we. You have to go and try to make it
better," he says. "Globally, the place looks like it's
a shambles, but in fact individual businesses are
slugging it out and succeeding."

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere
and one of the poorest in the world. It is chronically
dependent on aid from the United States, World Bank
and Inter-American Development Bank, along with an
estimated $800 million sent home annually by Haitian
exiles working abroad.

President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled the country Feb.
29 as rebels closed in on the capital and lawlessness
engulfed the city. A 3,600-member multinational force,
including 2,000 U.S. Marines, is in Haiti to keep
order. An interim government says it will hold
elections next year.

Deschamps says PromoCapital will be a pipeline for
investment by some of the millions of Haitians abroad
and fill a void left by undercapitalized commercial
banks and weary aid agencies. He says PromoCapital
will:

• Finance modernization projects. PromoCapital is
looking at investments in telecom and housing for the
working poor.

• Find partners for family-owned businesses in need of
financing to expand.

• Offer credit guarantees to farmers and small and
midsize businesses that suffered damage and losses
from recent looting and vandalism. The guarantees will
let entrepreneurs borrow on favorable terms from the
country's commercial banks.

Dumarsais Siméus, a PromoCapital founder who owns a
large food-processing business in Texas, says partners
are looking for annual returns in the mid- or high
teens, compared with the 20% to 40% returns typically
sought by investors in private equity funds.

Traditionally, much of Haiti's business elite has been
viewed with distrust by ordinary Haitians and
government leaders alike.

"The Haitian business class has not been highly
regarded for its ethos of enlightened self-interest,"
says Robert Maguire, a Haiti expert at Trinity College
in Washington, D.C. "It wanted very much to protect
its privileged position (rather than) use its
investments for the well-being of society."


Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2004-04-29-haiti_x.htm







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