Context: How Bolsa de Valores de Asuncion works, and what it makes issuers disclose · Paraguay on the LatAm Power Map
Paraguay’s agricultural heartland runs partly on credit and chemistry that GPSA supplies — but its bonds are now frozen by regulators, and the Pereira family must decide how to fix the balance sheet before the next harvest.
| Full name | GP S.A. (Grupo Pereira S.A.E.C.A.) — commonly GPSA |
| Ticker / exchange | GPSA.PY · Bolsa de Valores de Asunción (BVA), Paraguay — bond issuer |
| Headquarters | Asunción, Paraguay (World Trade Center, Torre 3, Piso 17) |
| Sector | Agribusiness — agrochemical inputs, seeds, grains trading, farm credit |
| Employees | Not disclosed in available sources |
| Market value (market cap) | Not disclosed in available sources (bond issuer; equity not publicly traded) |
| Yearly sales (revenue) | Gs. 863,685 million (~USD 142.5M) — FY2022, latest full-year figure published |
| Net profit | Not disclosed in available sources |
| Net margin | Not disclosed in available sources |
| Return on equity | Not disclosed in available sources |
| Price-to-earnings | N/A (equity not listed) |
| Dividend yield | Not disclosed in available sources; historically aggressive payout noted by Feller Rate |
| Website | gpsa.com.py |
What it is
GPSA produces seeds, trades grains, and distributes agrochemicals to farmers across Paraguay, organised into four business lines: inputs and seeds, grains, back-office services, and a financial arm that lends to its own farmer-clients.
It distributes brands including Syngenta and BASF alongside its own GPSA label, and runs large-scale soya and maize production projects — some spanning 20,000 hectares in the northern San Pedro region — as living demonstrations of its agronomic technology.
Who owns it
The company traces its roots to Graciano Pereira, who founded Agrosan S.A. in 1993 as a local agent for ICI; when Syngenta bought that business out, he used the experience to build GPSA into Paraguay’s leading agro-input group.
Graciano now focuses on family governance and succession, with five of his six children working actively inside the group. His son Fabian Pereira serves on the board of directors.
Exact ownership percentages are not disclosed in available sources; the free float is effectively zero — GPSA accesses capital through bonds, not listed equity.
Who runs it
Graciano Pereira is president of the group, with operational management shared among his children across each division. Enrique Aponte holds the role of commercial manager (gerente comercial), and the CFO or finance director is not disclosed in available sources.
The money, in plain words
Revenue grew steadily to a record Gs. 863,685 million (about USD 142.5M — our calculation at 1 USD = 6,061.49 PYG) in FY2022, a 3.5% rise on 2021 — driven mainly by higher agrochemical prices and the dominant inputs-and-seeds line.
Net profit figures are not published in available sources.
By the first half of 2024 revenues had fallen 27.8% year-on-year to Gs. 430,495 million (~USD 71.0M — our calculation), because the soya harvest shifted later into the year, delaying cash receipts rather than cancelling them.
Financial debt reached Gs. 653,192 million (~USD 107.8M — our calculation) by June 2024, up 11.1% from December 2023, funded by new bank loans and fresh bond series — a heavy load for a company this size.
On an individual basis, adjusted financial debt stood at 7.1 times equity by mid-2024, a leverage ratio that leaves very little room for a bad harvest or a delayed collection. Interest coverage — how many times operating cash flow covers interest payments — fell to just 0.7 times at June 2024, meaning the business was not generating enough cash from operations to pay its interest bill in that half.
Equity has been squeezed by large dividend payouts: in 2023 the group paid out dividends equal to 83.9% of profits, and in the first half of 2024 the payout matched 100% of earnings.
What it is doing now
In October 2024, rating agency Feller Rate cut GPSA’s credit grade one notch from BBBpy to BBB-py, citing a rising pile of short-term debt and a liquidity position it labelled “Adjusted” — meaning stretched.
On 1 April 2025, Paraguay’s Superintendencia de Valores suspended GPSA automatically from raising new money in the primary market — blocking it from issuing further bonds or shares — because it had failed to file its mandatory annual financial statements for the year ending 31 December 2024. That suspension was the most consequential regulatory event in the company’s public-market history.
What to watch
- Filing the missing accounts. Until GPSA publishes its FY2024 audited financials and the regulator lifts the suspension, it cannot tap the bond market for refinancing. That is the single most urgent variable.
- Debt wall. A large share of debt matures in the short term, creating intense refinancing pressure. A good 2024/25 soya harvest would ease this; another drought would not.
- Dividend discipline. If cash generation does not improve structurally, continued heavy dividend payouts will keep eroding the equity base and tightening an already constrained liquidity position.
- Succession. Graciano Pereira is preparing to hand the group to the next generation. How that transition is managed — and whether governance tightens alongside it — will shape investor confidence.
Sources
- GPSA — Official company website (gpsa.com.py)
- Bolsa de Valores de Asunción — GP S.A.E. issuer page
- Bolsa de Valores de Asunción — GP S.A.E. material events (hechos de relevancia)
- Feller Rate — GP SAE credit rating report, October 2024 (BBB-py downgrade)
- Feller Rate — GP SAE prior rating report, October 2023 (BBBpy)
- Forbes Paraguay — “GPSA, una herencia que perdurará para las nuevas huellas” (June 2024)
- Economía Virtual — GP S.A.E. bond placement USD 6M with Regional Casa de Bolsa
- Market data: EODHD.
This is news, not investment advice.
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