Context: How Bolsa Boliviana de Valores works, and what it makes issuers disclose · Bolivia on the LatAm Power Map
Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora S.A. was Bolivia’s first privately built financial group holding company — the legal roof over a bank, a stock broker, an investment fund manager, and an insurer. Then its flagship bank collapsed in Bolivia’s largest modern financial failure, and the holding company has been fighting for its existence ever since.
| Full name | Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora S.A. (formerly SCFG Sociedad Controladora S.A.) |
|---|---|
| Ticker / exchange | SOC.BO — Bolsa Boliviana de Valores (BBV); bonds also listed |
| Headquarters | Av. San Martín entre calles J y K, Ed. M40 Plaza Empresarial, Torre 2, Piso 12, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia |
| Sector | Financial holding company (Sociedad Controladora de Grupo Financiero), supervised by ASFI |
| Employees | Not published: the company is a pure holding with no operating staff of its own; operating staff belonged to subsidiaries. No headcount figure appears in the ASFI filing, the BBV listing document, or the audited 2022 financial statements. |
| Market value (market cap) | Not published: the BBV listing page (bbv.com.bo) shows no equity share price or market capitalisation for SOC.BO. Bolivia’s equity market is very illiquid, and the company’s listed instruments are bonds, not shares. |
| Yearly revenue (most recent audited) | Not published in extractable form: the audited 2022 stand-alone financial statements (published April 2023, source: eju.tv / auditor’s report) confirm the company earns no operating revenue; its only “income” is the proportional change in the equity value of its subsidiaries (Valor Patrimonial Proporcional, or VPP method). No single-line revenue figure is disclosed on the BBV filings page or the ASFI tarjeta. ASFI Reglamento para Sociedades Controladoras requires annual filing of financial statements but does not mandate a publicly machine-readable income statement. |
| Net profit | Not published in extractable form: see revenue note above. The 2022 audited statements are the last confirmed set; no 2023 or 2024 audited figures appear in any public primary source (ASFI, BBV, or company site). |
| Net margin | Not calculable: no revenue figure published (see above). |
| Return on equity | Not calculable: no stand-alone equity or profit figure published in machine-readable form for any period after 2022. |
| Price-to-earnings | Not applicable: no listed equity price. |
| Dividend yield | Not published: no dividend disclosure in available sources. |
| Website | No operational company website identified in primary sources. |
What it is
Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora S.A. is a private holding company incorporated as a joint-stock company on 6 December 2017, with its legal domicile in Santa Cruz de la Sierra; its sole statutory purpose is to act as the controlling entity of the financial group called “SCFG Grupo Financiero.” It was created in compliance with Bolivia’s Law No. 393 on Financial Services and the specific Regulation on Controlling Companies of Financial Groups.
The group it controls consisted of four financial firms: Banco Fassil, Santa Cruz Investments SAFI (a fund manager), Santa Cruz Securities (a stock broker), and Santa Cruz Vida y Salud (a life and health insurer). The holding company owns no other business; it is a legal shell whose entire value is whatever its subsidiaries are worth.
Who owns it
Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora is itself owned 99.9995% by Santa Cruz Financial Group S.A.; the remaining 0.0004% is divided equally among Juan Ricardo Mertens Olmos, Jorge V.B., Martín W.E., and Sociedad de Inversiones de La Sierra. Behind Santa Cruz Financial Group sits Sociedad de Inversiones de La Sierra S.A., a vehicle associated with Mertens Olmos and the Wille, Roca Suárez, Velasco Bruno, Urenda, Chahin, and Pareja Roca families — a network of prominent Santa Cruz business families.
Not published: the precise shareholding structure of Santa Cruz Financial Group S.A. itself — i.e., what each family or individual holds — does not appear in the ASFI tarjeta, the BBV filings, or any document from the audited 2022 financial statements. Bolivia’s ASFI regulations (Reglamento para Grupos Financieros) require disclosure of direct owners of the Sociedad Controladora but do not mandate a published beneficial-ownership chain for intermediate holding vehicles.
Who runs it
Juan Ricardo Mertens Olmos had served as the dominant executive figure across the SCFG group, including as president of the board of Banco Fassil, and was detained by ASFI in April 2023 on allegations of financial crimes. Not published: no current CEO, CFO, or board chair of Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora S.A. is named in any post-2023 ASFI filing, BBV document, or press source that this reporter could access — a silence that itself reflects the depth of the governance breakdown following the bank’s collapse.
The money, in plain words
A pure financial holding company earns no revenue of its own; its books show whatever its subsidiaries are worth on a given day, using a method called proportional equity value (VPP in Spanish). As at the 2022 audit, investments in the group’s subsidiaries made up 86% of the holding company’s total assets.
Not published: the auditor’s report published in April 2023 (the most recent confirmed set) confirms figures exist but they are not presented in a machine-readable table in any publicly accessible primary source; the ASFI tarjeta and BBV filing page show no income-statement line items for this entity. After the Banco Fassil intervention in 2023, those subsidiary investments — the entire asset base — were critically impaired.
In October 2020, SCFG Sociedad Controladora was authorised to issue BOB 500 million (≈ US$50.8 million at today’s rate) in bonds. In October 2023 the company convened an assembly of bondholders — the people who lent it that money — to determine next steps, adjourning to reconvene virtually in November 2023.
Those bondholders remain the primary financial creditor audience watching this company.
What it is doing now
On 26 April 2023 ASFI formally intervened Banco Fassil — the group’s flagship and by far its largest asset — after detecting six irregular credit transactions to an 18-year-old account holder exceeding the legal limit. The bank subsequently entered liquidation, with its loan book sold off to competing Bolivian banks.
With its dominant subsidiary gone, the holding company has no functioning core business; its listed bonds are in distress and the ASFI registration page, as of the time of writing, records only the October 2023 bondholder assembly as its last public act.
What to watch
- Bond resolution. BOB 500 million (≈ US$50.8 m) in outstanding bonds need a formal restructuring or repayment plan; the bondholder assembly of late 2023 did not reach a conclusion.
- Remaining subsidiaries. Santa Cruz Securities, Santa Cruz Investments, and Santa Cruz Vida y Salud were separate regulated entities; their survival and any value recovery from them determines whether there is anything left for creditors.
- Criminal proceedings. Mertens Olmos and other former executives face criminal charges in Bolivia; outcomes will shape civil claims against the group’s remaining assets.
- Regulatory status. ASFI holds the company’s operating licence; any formal revocation or suspension would be the final chapter for SOC.BO.
Sources
- ASFI (Autoridad de Supervisión del Sistema Financiero) — Tarjeta de Registro, Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora S.A., entity code 53552: https://appweb.asfi.gob.bo/Reportes_asp/rmi/tarjeta.asp?c=53552&t=2
- Audited financial statements of Santa Cruz FG Sociedad Controladora S.A., 31 December 2022 and 2021 (published via eju.tv / auditor’s report): https://cd1.eju.tv/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ESTADO-FINANCIERO-BANCO-FASSIL.pdf
- Bolsa Boliviana de Valores — SOC bond listing document: https://www.bbv.com.bo/Media/Default/InformacionBursatil/Informes/BLP_SOC_E1_AES.PDF
- Bolsa Boliviana de Valores — SOC ficha: https://www.bbv.com.bo/Media/Default/Archivos/Fichas/SOC_CAR.pdf
- Correo del Sur, “¿Quiénes son los propietarios y accionistas del Banco Fassil?”, 26 April 2023: https://correodelsur.com/economia/20230426/quienes-son-los-propietarios-y-accionistas-del-banco-fassil.html
- La Razón, “Por mes se pagaba unos $us 360.000 en dietas a ocho directores de Banco Fassil”, 30 May 2023: https://www.la-razon.com/economia/2023/05/30/
- Market data: EODHD (no financial data available for this issuer on EODHD).
This is news, not investment advice.
Read More from The Rio Times