Having established itself as one of the leading names in Paraguay's securities market, CADIEM Casa de Bolsa is looking to the future with optimism, buoyed by the favourable moment the Paraguayan economy and the country's capital market are going through.
With the first investment-grade rating secured and the second awaited, the firm foresees a future of ever larger projects, attractive to international investors.
CADIEM Casa de Bolsa is celebrating 22 years in business, against a backdrop of sustained growth in Paraguay's securities market, both in exchange trading and in mutual and investment funds. Gloria Ayala Person, founding partner and director of the company, looked back on the beginnings of a venture that has now been operating for more than two decades.
“I remember CADIEM's beginnings with emotion. From day one, we were driven by a clear dream: to contribute to Paraguay's development by offering financial products made by and for people. It was almost a quixotic undertaking in a market that was only just starting out, but we had hope and conviction,” said the executive on the occasion of another company anniversary.
Despite having been one of the sector's pioneers, Ayala believes that putting the client at the centre has been one of the group's greatest strengths over these years. “I share this commitment with the Board and with the whole team, because we share the vision of a Paraguay where investment is a path to collective wellbeing,” she said on the subject.
Looking ahead, she said she sees a “very promising horizon for Paraguay's securities market”, as the recent investment-grade rating has been a historic milestone that positions the country as an attractive destination for savings and foreign investment. In her view, this creates a major opportunity to attract capital and finance local projects. She also noted that various sectors of the economy are growing on the back of macroeconomic stability, which fuels a climate of optimism.
“In this context, we believe it is essential to keep diversifying the economy and developing technology and infrastructure, but above all to maintain the discipline that sets CADIEM apart, which is why we continue designing initiatives that widen investment opportunities for all Paraguayans,” she said.
Asked about the future, she said the firm will continue acting as a strategic link between local investors and international platforms, so that clients can diversify their portfolios geographically from Paraguay. “But we also want to attract foreign capital, given the country's investment grade and the strengthening of the system with the implementation of the Caja de Valores del Paraguay, of which we are promoters and founders,” she added.
To this she added the alliances with multilateral bodies the firm has been promoting: “In fact, we are the exclusive placement agents for local issuances by entities such as the IDB and CAF, and we will keep up that work so that more financing flows into the country. We will go on democratising investment. Our Mutual Fund For All (fully digital), for example, is designed precisely to bring opportunities closer to everyone, encouraging financial inclusion through investment.”
Larger-scale projects
For his part, Elías Gelay, chairman of CADIEM Casa de Bolsa, stressed that this anniversary comes at an ideal moment for Paraguay's securities market. With the second investment-grade rating pending, Gelay noted that the various market participants are preparing to receive new investment and promote larger-scale projects capable of attracting the interest of global investors.
“The market today generates more than USD 7 billion in transactions, with major projects we are financing; this week we are launching the Link Center project. These are important milestones for CADIEM, but mainly for the capital market, because we are seeking to develop larger projects that will be of interest to the investors coming from abroad,” he said.
He expressed satisfaction with what has been achieved, but said “the best is yet to come”, since the coming years open up the possibility of alliances with foreign agents, who are starting to look at Paraguay with fresh eyes, driven by the stability achieved and the emergence of ever larger projects.
Investment funds
Over recent years, investment funds and mutual funds have become an option for local investors, both for their security and for the returns these instruments offer.
In October this year the market saw a notable event: CADIEM launched the largest investment fund in the country's history, for the development of the Link Center project. The venture will mobilise a total of USD 105 million, of which USD 75 million will be financed through the fund.
The launch of this fund is a genuine milestone for the Paraguayan market, as it is expected to mark the start of other projects of similar scale. Amounts of this size are the minimum needed to attract the interest of international investors, and are essential in the country's consolidation towards its new investment-grade status.
Investment funds are a key tool for a country's financial development, as they provide an ideal channel for directing resources into concrete projects in the real economy. They also give investors the chance to earn a return on their money instead of leaving it idle.
Another concrete example of the importance of funds is the ferrosilicon plant under construction in Limpio, Central Department. This has been made possible by an expansion of CADIEM's Industrial Facilities Investment Fund, with assets of USD 14.8 million, which also shows how important this tool is for Paraguayan manufacturing.
Although CADIEM was not the absolute pioneer in Paraguay's mutual and investment fund market, it was in the new phase this market is going through in our country. Marking another CADIEM anniversary, Cesar Pardes, chairman of the group's fund management company, recalled that relaunching and driving this tool in 2014 was quite a challenge.
“The funds came about as an idea to balance things out and create a different investment opportunity in Paraguay, one very common in other countries, and also as a way of securing stable income, because income at brokerage firms is more volatile. We started at a difficult time because there were no funds at all,” he said.
The financial crisis Paraguay went through in the 1990s frustrated the first attempts to create this kind of instrument, just as the 2008 global crisis affected the options available at the time. According to Paredes, the memory of those experiences was a risk factor when it came to reintroducing these instruments to the market.
“Today, with ten management companies operating and USD 1.8 billion under management, there is already a solid market. While a given fund may run into some difficulty at some point, it will no longer disappear as a product, just as the failure of one bank (during the crisis) did not mean the disappearance of all banks. This is now a market that will keep consolidating,” he reflected.
Funds are currently CADIEM's main source of income. In his view, this volume will keep growing, while fees will continue to fall, as competition has pushed market prices down.
About CADIEM
As of the end of October 2025, CADIEM manages assets totalling USD 905 million, a 20% increase on the same period in 2024. Of that amount, USD 584 million corresponds to the portfolio managed by the brokerage firm, while the remaining USD 322 million comes from the investment funds managed by the firm.
The company currently has around 15,000 active clients across its offices in Asunción, Encarnación and Ciudad del Este. This national presence reflects CADIEM's commitment to decentralising and democratising access to investment, promoting the use of financial tools by both issuers and investors throughout the country.
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