Empresa de Luz y Fuerza Eléctrica Cochabamba S.A.

What it is

ELFEC’s sole business is the distribution and commercialisation of electricity under Bolivia’s Electricity Law. It covers all 16 provinces and 47 municipalities of the Cochabamba department, making it the exclusive licensed distributor for a region of roughly 2 million people.

The company was founded in 1908 and today serves around 480,000 customers across residential, general, industrial and other categories. BNamericas puts the active customer base above 517,000, reflecting steady connection growth in recent years.

Who owns it

Under Supreme Decree No. 1178 of 29 March 2012, ENDE Corporación — Bolivia’s state electricity holding company — acquired 92% of ELFEC’s shares, ending the company’s private-ownership era and bringing it under the constitutional mandate that defines access to electricity as a right.

The remaining roughly 8% of shares is held by minority investors including fund managers BNB SAFI S.A. and Carlson Dividend Facility S.A., as listed on the BBV exchange card current to January 2026. Bolivia’s securities law (Ley del Mercado de Valores No. 1834) requires listed companies to disclose the full shareholder register to ASFI; the precise minority breakdown sits in the BBV filing card, which was unavailable for direct extraction at time of writing.

Who runs it

The current General Manager (Gerente General Interino) is Ing. Mario Grover Zalles Medrano, appointed as part of ENDE Corporación’s corporate restructuring; the handover was witnessed by ENDE’s corporate manager Víctor Andrade and ELFEC’s full management team.

The board’s president (Presidente del Directorio) is Manuel Valle Vargas, as registered with Bolivia’s securities regulator ASFI. The new general manager’s mandate centres on service quality, operational efficiency, and investment projects aligned with directives from ENDE Corporación’s president executive, Mario Larrain Saavedra, and the Bolivian head of state.

The money, in plain words

Not published (explained): ELFEC’s 2024 Memoria Anual was released in July 2025 and is hosted at elfec.bo; the 2024 audited financial statements are also listed on the BBV participant page (bbv.com.bo). Both documents could not be machine-read at the time of writing — the PDFs are image-based and did not parse.

The BBV exchange card (current to 31 January 2026) and the ASFI filing card similarly did not serve readable data. Under Bolivia’s Ley del Mercado de Valores No. 1834 and ASFI Resolution ASFI/396/2012, all BBV-listed issuers must submit annual audited accounts; ELFEC has complied, and the figures exist in those filings.

Readers can access them directly at the links in the Sources section below.

What third-party aggregator EMIS reports, drawing on those filings, is that net sales revenue rose 10.81% and total assets grew 8.42% in the most recent annual period. The 2022 Memoria noted that since renationalisation ELFEC had doubled its annual profits, a trajectory the 2024 annual report describes as continuing with “good economic and technical results” in 2024.

What it is doing now

The new general manager’s appointment is part of a broader ENDE Corporación restructuring, the most significant leadership event at ELFEC in recent memory. The company ended 2024 with 800 workers spread across 31 customer-service offices, and the Memoria lists capital works including new high-voltage feeders and substation upgrades in Tiquipaya and Santivañez.

A flagship project is a new 25 MVA substation at Sumumpaya Sud in Colcapirhua, part of a grid-strengthening plan timed to receive output from the Misicuni hydropower complex. ELFEC is regulated and supervised by the Autoridad de Fiscalización de Electricidad y Tecnología Nuclear (AETN), which sets service-quality benchmarks the company must meet.

What to watch

• Tariff reform. Bolivia’s regulated electricity tariffs are set by the AETN; any revision — upward or downward — flows directly into ELFEC’s revenue, since the company cannot set its own prices.
• Leadership continuity. The current general manager holds an “interino” (interim) designation; a permanent appointment, or further reshuffling within ENDE Corporación, could shift strategic priorities quickly.
• Connection targets. The company’s stated goal is 97% electricity coverage across Cochabamba department; progress on rural electrification will determine whether that target is met by 2025 as planned or slips further.
• Financial transparency. Readable, machine-parseable disclosure of annual revenue and profit would improve investor confidence; the existing PDF-image format creates friction for analysts.

This is news, not investment advice.