Financiera DESYFIN S.A.

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What it is

Financiera DESYFIN S.A. is a non-bank financial institution that has operated in Costa Rica since 1991. Its business model centred on factoring, working capital loans, leasing, credit cards, and bonds for projects with government institutions and private companies.

By December 2021 it had consolidated its operations — including the financing arm, a leasing company, and an insurance brokerage — under a holding group, and at its peak it was the largest non-bank financial institution in Costa Rica by total assets, serving approximately 2,600 SMEs. It had more than 4,000 depositors and up to six active bond issues trading on the stock exchange.

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Who owns it

The business has been managed historically by the Lacayo family. The group has six shareholders controlling 100% of the capital: one is a Norwegian government investment fund, and the other five are private companies in which members of the board of directors hold interests.

NORFUND — the Norwegian government’s development investment fund — holds 23.18% of the group’s shares. The remaining 76.72% is held by five Costa Rican holding companies linked to Silvio Lacayo Lacayo, board chairman, and his wife Hortensia Beeche Michaud, along with their sons Silvio, Mauricio, and Manfred Lacayo Beeche.

Norfund acquired its stake in 2013 for $6 million.

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Who runs it

M.B.A. Silvio Lacayo Beeche served as General Manager until July 2024, when he submitted his resignation, citing a move to “more strategic functions” for the financial company.

The internal auditor was Johnny González Álvarez and the accountant was Ana María Obando Abarca.

Since October 2024, the entity has been managed not by the family but by a court-appointed administrator. The intervention team led by Marianne Kött determined that Desyfin had miscalculated the risk value of its loans.

Kött was subsequently named Resolution Administrator by CONASSIF.

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The money, in plain words

Reading the last fully audited accounts — Financiera DESYFIN S.A.’s standalone statements for the year ended 31 December 2023, published on the company’s own site — the picture was already deteriorating. Total financial income (the income a lender earns from interest and fees, its equivalent of revenue) was ₡18,816M (~$41.8M), yet the company reported a net loss of ₡1,142M (~$2.5M), a net margin of –6.1% — meaning it spent more than it earned, for the first time in years.

Sugef confirmed a 2023 net loss of ₡1,141.5 million.

At the moment of intervention in August 2024, Desyfin held total assets of ₡211,069M (~$468.7M), with reported equity of just ₡11,701M (~$26.0M) — and regulators found that even this was overstated because credit-loss reserves had been systematically understated. The intervention team reported losses of ₡21,968M (~$48.8M) by August 2024, a sum that consumed the entirety of the company’s equity.

The company also carried ₡66,431M (~$147.5M) in debt to ten financial institutions, 73% of it due within one year.

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What it is doing now

Desyfin was placed under intervention by CONASSIF on 13 August 2024 after Sugef detected poor practices in the management of its loan portfolio that had pushed the institution into a state of capital insufficiency. CONASSIF subsequently declared the institution unviable and initiated a formal resolution process in October 2024.

The economic crimes division of the Costa Rican prosecutor’s office concluded that Desyfin’s crisis was caused by a plan orchestrated by the majority shareholders to obtain unlawful financial benefits. Silvio Lacayo Lacayo, Hortensia Beeche Michaud, Silvio Lacayo Beeche, Manfred Lacayo Beeche, and Mauricio Lacayo Beeche — the principal shareholders — are at the head of the judicial investigation.

The family denies the allegations.

The resolution divided Desyfin’s assets into a “good bank” — higher-quality assets to be sold to a solvent institution — and a “bad bank” — remaining assets placed into a trust for liquidation. The entity in closure holds deposits from 4,028 people, with public obligations of ₡99,900M (~$222M).

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What to watch

• Good-bank sale: As of early 2025, no solvent acquirer for the good-bank portfolio had yet been announced. A confirmed buyer would set the recovery rate for depositors.
• Criminal proceedings: Police raided Desyfin’s offices and the homes of shareholders in October 2024. Charges against 26 individuals, including the entire board, remain active.
• Depositor recovery: Deposits are guaranteed only up to ₡6M (~$13,300) per person under the Deposit Guarantee Fund law. Anyone above that threshold depends entirely on what the resolution raises from asset sales.
• System signal: Desyfin’s collapse was the second intervention ordered by CONASSIF within three months in 2024, prompting a broader review of supervisory effectiveness in Costa Rica’s non-bank sector.

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This is news, not investment advice.