CAMSA INDUSTRIA Y COMERCIO S.A.

What it is

CAMSA has been in business for more than 30 years and is a major player in Bolivia’s wholesale trade sector, with four core lines: automotive parts and accessories, household appliances and electronics, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods.

The company has nine operating centres spread across the departments of La Paz, Cochabamba, Tarija, and Santa Cruz — a national footprint unusual for a privately held Bolivian firm of its size.

Its formal charter is unusually broad: the company is authorised to import and distribute vehicles, motorbikes and parts; lamps and home accessories; paints and varnishes; fruit juices, mineral water, beer, wine and spirits; tyres and rubber for all vehicle types; and pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. In practice it operates as a multi-category national importer and distributor rather than a manufacturer.

Who owns it

The BBV company ficha identifies Inversiones Caminvest S.A. as a related holding entity — the structure that is standard for Bolivian family-controlled groups that channel ownership through an investment company. The exact percentage stake held by Caminvest, and the identity of the ultimate individual shareholders behind it, are not published in the BBV ficha, the ASFI bond prospectuses, or the ASFI issuer registry reviewed for this profile; Bolivian securities law (Ley del Mercado de Valores No. 1834 and ASFI’s Reglamento de Registro de Valores) requires disclosure of significant shareholders in bond prospectuses, but the ASFI PDFs filed for Bonos CAMSA II and Pagarés Bursátiles CAMSA II could not be fully parsed from the regulator’s server.

Not published: the free-float percentage and the precise Caminvest ownership stake do not appear in any accessible primary source — the BBV participant page, the ASFI tarjeta de emisor, or the bond prospectus snippets available at the time of writing.

Who runs it

Not published: the names of the CEO, CFO, and board chair do not appear in the BBV ficha snippet (bbv.com.bo/Media/Default/Archivos/Fichas/CMI_CAR.pdf, timed out on direct fetch), the ASFI issuer card (appweb.asfi.gob.bo, timed out), or the bond prospectus PDFs (which could not be parsed). CAMSA has been a registered issuer with ASFI since 2018 under registration number ASFI/DSVSC-EM-CMI-010/2018.

Bolivia’s Reglamento de Emisión de Bonos requires the prospecto marco to name the company’s legal representative and directors; those pages of the prospectus were not accessible from the server at the time of writing. Readers seeking current management names should consult the full prospecto marco on the ASFI website directly.

The money, in plain words

Not published: CAMSA does not publish revenue, net profit, or total assets in any open-access filing reviewed — neither on the BBV participant page nor in the ASFI bond prospectus excerpts available. Bolivia’s Ley del Mercado de Valores No. 1834 requires listed bond issuers to file audited annual financial statements with ASFI; the prospecto marco for Bonos CAMSA II references “Estados Financieros de CAMSA Industria y Comercio S.A. Auditados” as an annex, but those pages were not accessible via the ASFI server.

The bond programme Bonos CAMSA II, with a total authorised size of Bs 70,000,000 (~US$7.1M), was originally approved at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting in November 2022. A first emission of Bs 40,000,000 (~US$4.1M) was registered with ASFI in September 2024 under reference ASFI/DSV-ED-CMI-052/2024.

Separately, CAMSA disclosed to ASFI that on 17 July 2024 it obtained a bank loan from Banco Ganadero S.A. for Bs 14,000,000 (~US$1.4M). Combined, these are the only hard financial data points publicly visible; they suggest the company is an active user of Bolivia’s formal capital market but keeps its full profit-and-loss accounts behind the prospectus paywall.

What it is doing now

IDB Invest — the private-sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank — has structured a revolving credit line of up to US$5 million for CAMSA’s working capital, with individual drawings lasting up to 390 days, intended to improve supply-chain efficiency and support the company’s growth plan.

CAMSA received a regulatory-compliance award from the BBV for its 2022 reporting period, and the company has obtained a “Great Place to Work” certification, which it says reflects its commitment to a positive working environment. Both moves signal a company building institutional credibility as it deepens its presence in Bolivia’s formal capital markets.

What to watch

• Financial transparency. CAMSA’s full audited accounts sit inside ASFI’s registry but are not freely downloadable. If the company graduates to a more liquid equity listing, full disclosure will be required — and investors will finally see margins and returns.
• Bolivia’s foreign-exchange squeeze. The country has faced acute hard-currency shortages since 2023; as a major importer of consumer goods, vehicles, and pharmaceuticals, CAMSA’s costs in bolivianos rise when the parallel dollar rate diverges from the official 6.86 rate — a structural risk for any import-dependent business.
• Bond rollovers. The Bs 70M (~US$7.1M) bond programme and a parallel pagarés programme of the same size both mature in tranches; watch whether CAMSA refinances them on the BBV or shifts to bank debt as Bolivian interest rates evolve.
• Ownership clarity. The Caminvest holding structure has not been explained in public filings. Any equity offering or secondary-market activity would require clear disclosure of who ultimately controls the company.

This is news, not investment advice.