Uruguay

Uruguay’s first initial public offering under streamlined regulations introduced two years ago is expected to launch in late June, testing investor appetite for the South American country’s tech sector, Bloomberg News reported. Zorzal Inversiones Tecnologicas SA will sell as much as $15.5 million in shares, which it will use to buy minority stakes in at least five profitable local tech companies with annual sales of $3 million or more, said Jaime Miller, general partner at Montevideo-based investment banking firm Capital Oriental that is structuring the IPO and will also run Zorzal.

Uruguay’s central bank resumed its easing cycle with a half-point cut to its benchmark interest rate after inflation rose at the slowest pace since 2005, Bloomberg News reported. The central bank said it lowered the key rate by 50 basis points to 8.50% following a pause in February thanks to a gradual drop in inflation expectations and a sustained slowdown in consumer price increases that’ve stayed within the 3% to 6% target. The move on Wednesday marked the central bank’s biggest since a half-point reduction last October.

Diego Labat, Uruguay's central bank chief, is sitting pretty. Inflation is at the lowest level in nearly two decades, the currency is one of the region's strongest, and the country is leading a regional pivot towards interest rate easing, Reuters reported. That's a sharp contrast to just across the Rio de La Plata estuary in Buenos Aires, where inflation hit 124% in August, the highest since 1991, capital controls are barely holding back a fall in the currency, and net reserve levels are in the red.

Uruguay's central bank is likely to cut its benchmark interest rate again at its next monetary policy meeting in October as inflation has fallen to a near two-decade low, governor Diego Labat told Reuters on Friday, Reuters reported. The South American country has led the region's pivot to rate cutting after sharp hikes by central banks around Latin America in recent years to rein in prices, an aggressive tightening cycle that helped many get inflation under control.

Fishing firm Fripur’s former workers presented a note at a Creditors’ Meeting Court in which they claim the nullity of the insolvency process allocating the company assets to the multinational firm Cooke Aquaculture, FIS reported. Cooke Aquaculture was expected to pay USD 15 million, but so far it has only deposited USD 3.8 million. The workers that are members of the cooperative that was formed after the bankruptcy of the fishing firm, Eco-Fripur, argue that the multinational firm has not met the payment terms and that, therefore, the process is null.