Grupo Aval is a Colombian

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

engaged in a wide variety of

financial Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

activities, including

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

and real estate; in Colombia and Central America. Grupo Aval is controlled by Luis Carlos Sarmiento (estimated net worth of U$11,9 billion), who indirectly owns around 80 percent of its

shares In financial markets, a share (sometimes referred to as stock or equity) is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation. It can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Sha ...

Operations

As a holding company, Grupo Aval owns sufficient amounts of voting

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

in other companies to control their policies. In addition to its interests in numerous industrial sectors, Grupo Aval controls some of Colombia and Central America's top financial organizations, including: * Banco de Bogotá S.A. (68.9% ownership) - which owns Multibank of Panama (100% ownership) * Banco de Occidente S.A. (72.3% ownership) * Banco Popular S.A. (93.7% ownership) which owns Corficolombiana (8.7% ownership) * Banco AV Villas S.A. (79.9% ownership) *

BAC Credomatic BAC Credomatic is a financial group in Central America, with operations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua (where it was founded and former headquarters in the city of Managua), Costa Rica (current headquarters), Panama, Grand Cayman, ...

(25% ownership) * Casa de Bolsa S.A. in Colombia. BAC Valores(Panamá), Inc. BAC San Jose, Puesto de Bolsa, S.A. in Costa Rica. * Porvenir S.A. (25% ownership),

Pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any program, fund, or scheme which provides pension, retirement income. The U.S. Government's Social Security Trust Fund, which oversees $2.57 trillion in assets, is the ...

in Colombia Grupo Aval's internal staff consists of approximately 100 employees, dedicated to analyzing and identifying the most efficient financial and operating practices as well as recommending the implantation of these practices within organizations that the Group controls. To obtain these objectives, Grupo Aval is divided into three business divisions that include: (1)

Investments Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources into something expected to gain value over time". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broade ...

and Strategic Planning, (2)

Risk Management Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks, followed by the minimization, monitoring, and control of the impact or probability of those risks occurring. Risks can come from various sources (i.e, Threat (sec ...

, (3) Corporative Services and (3) Technological Information.

History

On April 18, 1997, the Group formally changed its trading name from Administraciones Bancarias S.A. to Sociedad A.B. S.A. On January 8, 1998, the Group once again changed its name to Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A. Later that year, Grupo Aval introduced an

Online banking Online banking, also known as internet banking, virtual banking, web banking or home banking, is a system that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial institut ...

platform, which was integrated within the Group's major banking subsidiaries, Banco de Bogotá, Banco de Occidente, Banco Popular and Banco AV Villas. This innovation allowed clients to either conduct financial transactions on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

or in real-time at anyone of the banks branch offices or

automated teller machines Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

. A major milestone occurred during 1999 when Grupo Aval listed their shares publicly on the Bolsa de Valores de Colombia (the Colombian

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for ...

) for the first time in the company's history. The Group made a massive

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

of 1,200,774,970 shares of

common stock Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other C ...

between November 1 and December 31, 1999. By December 31, 1999, Aval had 40,042

shareholders A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...

. The final result of the IPO was the sale of 312,062,341 shares of common stock, or 2.58 percent of their total, with a

fair market value The fair market value of property is the price at which it would change hands between a willing and informed buyer and seller. The term is used throughout the Internal Revenue Code, as well as in bankruptcy laws, in many state laws, and by several ...

of $58,190,135,296. In 2000, plans to list Grupo Aval on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is the List of stock exchanges, largest stock excha ...

were postponed due to

Wall Street Wall Street is a street in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs eight city blocks between Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway in the west and South Street (Manhattan), South Str ...

's unfavorable climate for

emerging market An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or we ...

funds at the time. As of 2007, Luis Carlos Sarmiento continues to run the company with assistance from his son Luis Carlos Sarmiento Gutierrez, whom he is grooming to eventually assume control of the family conglomerate. Due to GE Capital focusing on industrial activity rather than retail banking, the group acquired for US$1.9 billion BAC, Credomatic Network from GE Consumer Finance in July 2010 Grupo Aval made a debut global offering of $600 million in February 2012 with advisory assistance from New York law firm

Davis Polk & Wardwell Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, commonly known as Davis Polk, is an American multinational corporation, multinational law firm headquartered in New York City with offices in Washington, D.C., Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park, London, Madrid, Brussel ...

Regulation

The Group is supervised by the Colombian Superintendency of Securities because of its size and because its shares are registered on the

Colombia Stock Exchange The Colombia Securities Exchange (, bvc) is a stock exchange which was created as a result of merging three independent stock exchanges: Bogotá (Bolsa de Bogotá, 1928), Medellín (Bolsa de Medellín, 1961) and Occidente (Bolsa de Occidente, Ca ...

Federal Reserve System The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

, 'Banco de Bogotá S.A., Order Approving Establishment of an Agency'. June 11, 2001

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grupo Aval Acciones Y Valores, Sa Colombian brands Companies based in Bogotá Companies listed on the Colombia Stock Exchange Investment companies of Colombia

Operations

History

Regulation

See also

References

External links