The National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV), the regulatory body of the Mexican financial and stock market system, could revoke the operating license of Bursametrica, one of the 36 brokerage houses operating in the country.
According to the information available, the regulatory authority detected a shortage in the company’s capital stock for 60.4 million pesos.
A few days ago, the risk rating agency HR Ratings downgraded Bursametrica’s rating from HR BB- to HR B+, placing it under negative observation after this brokerage house received from the CNBV, last February, the summons letter on the administrative procedure of its revocation.
According to the data revealed by the Mexican rating agency, the brokerage house founded by Ernesto O’Farril Santoscoy had a net capital of 28.4 million pesos at the end of 2022, when the regulatory minimum is 88.8 million pesos.
“This calculation, based on not recognizing the stockholders’ equity movements made by an investor to the brokerage house in the periods from November 2018 to December 2021,” can be read in the HR Ratings report.
In this regard, HR Ratings pointed out that Bursametrica reported at a shareholders’ meeting in March the restitution of its capital as instructed by the CNBV, for which reason it is expected to comply with the requirements issued by the authority and thus render null and void the office of location of the authority.
Bursametrica is an entity that in 2018 received authorization from the CNBV to operate as a brokerage house and has assets of 4,618 million pesos; that is, it is the 21st entity in the system (measured by assets).
The firm, which at the end of 2022 managed 1,179 investment accounts, is focused on providing investors with asset management, operational and administrative services, with personalized attention in advisory and execution.
In the public records of the CNBV, this brokerage house does not present any indicator that shows any alarm signal, since at the end of December of last year, it had, for the first time in its history, profits of 29 million pesos and registered a capitalization index of 21.37%, when the minimum required for this type of entities is 10.5 percent.
The brokerage house has been able to maintain a capitalization index of 21.3% and obtain positive net results for the first time since the beginning of its operations”, detailed HR Ratings.
In October of last year, HR Ratings lowered the rating of the brokerage house from HR BB to HR BB-, with a negative outlook, due to the constant generation of net losses (accounted for at the end of 2021), the dependence on the contributions of capital and the qualifications shown in its audited financial statements.
The three sins of Bursametrica
In the supervision of the CNBV, this authority has found three fundamental problems in Bursametrica: irregular movements regarding the subscription of shares of said entity; its participation in brokerage with securities not registered in the National Securities Registry (RNV) and a battle for share control of this brokerage house.
In October 2018, the board of directors of the Bursametrica Stock Exchange approved that some of its officials subscribe more than 18 million shares of the same at a preferential price of 0.05 cents, when its face value was 0.64 cents, while the differential, 59 cents, would be carried against its ledger account of the results of previous years.
This situation, for the CNBV, meant a series of transgressions to different laws, such as the Commercial Companies Law and the Securities Market Law, for which reason it initiated the corresponding sanctioning processes.
From this detected regularity, especially by Mireya Suárez, who at that time was working as general director of Supervision of Stock Market Entities and Intermediaries of the National Banking and Securities Commission, an in-depth supervision of the financial institution began.
In this process, the CNBV detected the participation of Bursametrica in the embezzlement of Segalmex: Liconsa and Diconsa.
It turns out that the brokerage house brokered securities not registered in the National Securities Registry (RNV), which the government agency acquired without any guarantee.
In this regard, the CNBV issued a fine for an amount of 6.3 million pesos to the brokerage house for this action, which was detected since 2019.
The CNBV considers it a serious conduct.
In recent months, Bursametrica has been involved in a fight for its shareholding control between Ernesto O’Farril and businessman Roberto Guzmán, who has sought that the CNBV recognize a new shareholding structure for the firm, now without its founder.
The regulatory authority, however, has rejected said request, a situation that has generated that, without a clear structure, fresh capital cannot enter.
The last revocation of the CNBV to a brokerage firm was ten years ago when in 2013 it withdrew the license of ING México Casa de Bolsa.
