Juan Manuel Martans, superintendent of Panama’s securities regulator Kris Hudson/The Wall Street Journal
This is the third and final story Kris wrote for the WSJ about how we will see the first publicly traded REITS here next year and how the sector will face challenges.
PANAMA CITY, Panama—Panamanian authorities want to open the country’s small but burgeoning commercial real-estate industry to more outside investors, and they are banking on real-estate investment trusts as the way to do it.
Panama anticipates welcoming its first publicly traded REITs next year. The government has been putting the necessary legislation and regulations in place over the past two years to provide much-needed liquidity to the Panamanian real-estate market.
“We have a very dynamic real-estate market, but unfortunately it is in the hands of a few investors,” said Marielena Garcia Maritano, a senior vice president of investment banking at Panama’s MMG Bank Corp. and president of the Panamanian Chamber of Managers of Mutual Funds and Pension Funds who helped guide the REIT legislation.