UK company to invest in Cuba
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from October 1994.
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The fund, expected to be established early next year, is planned by Havana Asset Management Limited (HAM), a subsidiary of Beta Funds that is the first investment company to focus exclusively on Cuba.
HAM directors, announcing the plans at news conference Thursday in Havana, made clear they saw their move as a sign of confidence in current economic reform on the Caribbean island.
The Beta group, which manages or advises funds with a value of $240 million, specialises in emerging markets such as Vietnam,
The other shareholders of HAM are Nueva Compania de Indias S.A. (NCI), a Spanish trading company operating in Cuba, and James Miura, managing director of Ninecastle Overseas Limited, a British investment management company.
Peter Scott, chief executive of Beta Funds Limited and a director of HAM, said Cuba was now clearly moving away from a command to a market economy.
"There's no doubt in our mind that what the reform process (in Cuba) is beginning to amount to is a comprehensive reform rather than a bit-by-bit "We would only become seriously committed when it was clear that the move towards free markets was inexorable...The Pandora's box (of reforms) has been opened and is it not possible to close it," he added.
Reform in Cuba, whose oil-importing and sugar-exporting economy was savaged by the collapse of the Soviet Union, have included efforts to attract foreign investment in virtually all sectors of the economy -- including tourism, mining and oil.
Scott, who drew several parallels between Vietnam and current changes in Cuba, said interest in the fund so far had come from institutional investors in Britain, Scandinavia, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Canada and Mexico.
