Latin America Comes of Age

Latin American private equity has come of age, says officer in charge of investing the World Bank’s money throughout the region.

In a wide-ranging interview with Privcap, Ralph Keitel, Principal Investment Officer of theInternational Finance Corporation (a division of the World Bank), describes a landscape in which distributions to investors now equal fundraising statistics – a healthy sign of value being realized in a market that has not always benefited from much liquidity. Keitel discusses the strength of the Colombian market, why Brazil still needs development capital, what his group looks for when considering backing a new GP team, and how the IFC will work to custom-create a private equity firm when a developing economy desperately needs one, as was the case recently in Haiti.