Montevideo — JP Morgan’s (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon traveled to Uruguay earlier this month and met with President Luis Lacalle Pou and, in a separate encounter, with the heads of some of the region’s biggest companies.
Dimon sat down with Marcos Galperin of MercadoLibre (MELI), Martín Migoya of Globant (GLOB) and Sergio Fogel of dLocal (DLO), government and business sources confirmed to Bloomberg Línea.
Dimon and Lacalle Pou met in the Torre Ejecutiva in a meeting in which Martín Guerra, the CEO of Incapital and founder of consumer credit company Pronto! was also present.
At the meeting, President Lacalle Pou highlighted Uruguay’s stability as a key factor in attracting investment, sources that asked to remain anonymous told Bloomberg Línea.
Dimon’s meeting with the business leaders brought together one of the world’s leading bankers with technology industry leaders from Argentina and Uruguay in a meeting at the Hotel Sofitel Carrasco, and which was also attended by the founder of Ualá, Pierpaolo Barbieri, and of Genexus, Nicolás Jodal, a Uruguayan software company that was acquired this year by Globant.
The aim of Dimon’s trip, according to the sources, was to attain an overview of the business climate in Latin America, and JP Morgan reportedly is not ruling out expanding in Uruguay. Currently, the investment bank’s local operation is headed by Argentine Facundo Gómez Minujin, who also coordinates the teams in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay.
The sources consulted also said that Dimon’s visit to South America included a trip to Argentina.
Uruguay as a business hub
The Uruguayan government seeks to position Uruguay as a technology industry hub for Latin America, and in recent years the country has witnessed the arrival of several Argentine business leaders, such as Galperin and Migoya, who have been living in Uruguay for the last two years after moving from Argentina.
Both the Uruguayan government and the local entrepreneurial ecosystem are confident that the presence of entrepreneurs behind big technology companies will boost the local startup ecosystem, not only with investments but also through networking, mentoring, and the possibility of approaching large investment funds.