Mexican regulator COFECO approves Financiera Independencia’s acquisition of Finsol

Microfinance Focus, Dec. 21, 2009:  Mexican microfinance lender Financiera Independencia has announced that the Comision Federal de Competencia (COFECO) approved its acquisition of Financiera Finsol, the second largest group lending microfinance institution in Mexico, and a group of related entities as announced on Nov. 30, 2009. The transaction is expected to close during January 2010 as soon as the rights offering process approved by the Shareholders’ Meeting celebrated on Dec. 17, 2009 is completed, it said in a statment.

Financiera Independencia provides microcredit loans on an unsecured basis to individuals in the low-income segments in Mexico in urban areas of both the formal and informal economy. As of Sept. 30, 2009, Independencia had a total outstanding loan balance of 4,793.1 million pesos, operated 198 offices in 143 cities throughout 31 of Mexico’s 32 federal entities and had a total labor force of 9,586 people. The Company listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange on Nov. 1, 2007, where it trades under the symbol “FINDEP”.

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