Women Top Recipients of Mexico Microlender Gentera Jonathan Levin and Sonali Basak - Bloomberg News | |
go to original March 5, 2014 |
MEXICO CITY – Gentera, the Mexican microlender catering to rural shopkeepers and craftswomen, is winning over analysts as it pushes into riskier personal and small-business loans in cities.
The shares have 14 buy recommendations, three holds and two sells among equity analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, giving it the highest average rating of 35 companies on Mexico’s benchmark IPC index after tortilla maker Gruma. Gentera said last month that its loan portfolio climbed 14 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to a record 20.7 billion pesos ($1.56 billion) as its delinquency rate almost doubled.
Gentera transformed itself from a non-governmental organization into a $2.8 billion multinational corporation by lending to clubs of 10 to 50 rural women who turned out to be reliable borrowers in part because of shared accountability, according to the company. As growth in that market slowed, the Mexico City-based company increased outstanding loans by 46 percent in urban areas to individuals and business collectives that include men.
“At the start of any strategy shift, there will be difficulties,” Ana Cecilia González, an analyst at Monex Casa de Bolsa, said from Mexico City. “They have been working to clean up the portfolio.”
Crédito Mujer, the most-popular product in Gentera’s seven-year history as a public company, allows groups of rural women to take out 3,500 pesos to 30,000 pesos for 16 weeks at an annual percentage rate, or APR, of 78 percent, according to the company’s website. The average loan is 4,986 pesos. The company said in a quarterly presentation on its website that rural populations foster “social cohesion” that help the creditworthiness of the group.
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