Grupo Aval is a Colombian

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

engaged in a wide variety of

financial Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

activities, including

banking A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets. Because ...

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

and

real estate Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more general ...

; in Colombia and Central America. Grupo Aval is controlled by

Luis Carlos Sarmiento Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo (born 27 January 1933) is a Colombian billionaire and the second wealthiest man in Colombia, with a net worth of US$10.3 billion, as of October 2021, that derives from the banking conglomerate Grupo Aval, of which ...

(estimated net worth of U$11,9 billion), who indirectly owns around 80 percent of its

shares In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...

Operations

As a holding company, Grupo Aval owns sufficient amounts of voting

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

in other companies to control their policies. In addition to its interests in numerous industrial sectors, Grupo Aval controls some of Colombia and Central America's top financial organizations, including: * Banco de Bogotá S.A. * Banco de Occidente S.A. * Banco Popular S.A. * Banco AV Villas S.A. *

Corficolombiana Corficolombiana is a Colombian company dealing in financial solutions, with its customers being some of the largest corporations in Colombia. Its primary mission is to provide the necessary capital to promote the creation, growth, reorganisatio ...

BAC Credomatic BAC Credomatic is a financial group in Central America, with operations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua (where it was founded and former headquarters in the city of Managua), Costa Rica (current headquarters), Panama, Grand Cayman, ...

with operations in Costa Rica, Panamá, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and the US State of Florida. * Casa de Bolsa S.A. in Colombia. BAC Valores(Panamá), Inc. BAC San Jose, Puesto de Bolsa, S.A. in Costa Rica.

Pension fund A pension fund, also known as a superannuation fund in some countries, is any plan, fund, or scheme which provides retirement income. Pension funds typically have large amounts of money to invest and are the major investors in listed and priva ...

management companys owned by the holding: *Porvenir S.A. in Colombia. BAC San José Pensiones Operadora de Planes de Pensiones Complementarias S.A. in Costa Rica before BSJ Porvenir. Grupo Aval's internal staff consists of approximately 100 employees, dedicated to analyzing and identifying the most efficient financial and operating practices as well as recommending the implantation of these practices within organizations that the Group controls. To obtain these objectives, Grupo Aval is divided into three business divisions that include: (1)

Investments Investment is the dedication of money to purchase of an asset to attain an increase in value over a period of time. Investment requires a sacrifice of some present asset, such as time, money, or effort. In finance, the purpose of investing is ...

and Strategic Planning, (2) Risk Management, (3) Corporative Services and (3) Technological Information.

History

On April 18, 1997, the Group formally changed its trading name from Administraciones Bancarias S.A. to Sociedad

A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

S.A. On January 8, 1998, the Group once again changed its name to Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S.A. Later that year, Grupo Aval introduced an

Online banking Online banking, also known as internet banking, web banking or home banking, is an electronic payment system that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial inst ...

platform, which was integrated within the Group's major banking subsidiaries, Banco de Bogotá, Banco de Occidente, Banco Popular and Banco AV Villas. This innovation allowed clients to either conduct financial transactions on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

or in real-time at anyone of the banks branch offices or

automated teller machines An automated teller machine (ATM) or cash machine (in British English) is an electronic telecommunications device that enables customers of financial institutions to perform financial transactions, such as cash withdrawals, deposits, fun ...

. A major milestone occurred during 1999 when Grupo Aval listed their shares publicly on the

Bolsa de Valores de Colombia The Colombia Securities Exchange ( es, Bolsa de Valores de Colombia, bvc) is a stock exchange which was created as a result of merging three independent stock exchanges: Bogotá (Bolsa de Bogotá, 1928), Medellín (Bolsa de Medellín, 1961) and O ...

(the Colombian

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...

) for the first time in the company's history. The Group made a massive

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

of 1,200,774,970 shares of

common stock Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other Com ...

between November 1 and December 31, 1999. By December 31, 1999, Aval had 40,042

shareholders A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal owner ...

. The final result of the IPO was the sale of 312,062,341 shares of common stock, or 2.58 percent of their total, with a

fair market value The fair market value of property is the price at which it would change hands between a willing and informed buyer and seller. The term is used throughout the Internal Revenue Code, as well as in bankruptcy laws, in many state laws, and by several ...

of $58,190,135,296. In 2000, plans to list Grupo Aval on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

were postponed due to

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for t ...

's unfavorable climate for

emerging market An emerging market (or an emerging country or an emerging economy) is a market that has some characteristics of a developed market, but does not fully meet its standards. This includes markets that may become developed markets in the future or were ...

funds at the time. As of 2007, Luis Carlos Sarmiento continues to run the company with assistance from his son Luis Carlos Sarmiento Gutierrez, whom he is grooming to eventually assume control of the family conglomerate. Due to GE Capital focusing on industrial activity rather than retail banking, the group acquired for US$1.9 billion BAC, Credomatic Network from GE Consumer Finance in July 2010 Grupo Aval made a debut global offering of $600 million in February 2012 with advisory assistance from New York law firm

Davis Polk & Wardwell Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, better known as Davis Polk is a white-shoe, international law firm headquartered in New York City with 980 attorneys worldwide and offices in Washington, D.C., Northern California, London, Paris, Madrid, Hong Kong, Beiji ...

. AVAL's current earnings (2017) per share is $.65. Zacks Investment Research reports AVAL's forecasted earnings growth in 2017 as 3.62%, compared to an industry average of 8.1%.

Regulation

The Group is supervised by the Colombian Superintendency of Securities because of its size and because its shares are registered on the

Colombia Stock Exchange The Colombia Securities Exchange ( es, Bolsa de Valores de Colombia, bvc) is a stock exchange which was created as a result of merging three independent stock exchanges: Bogotá (Bolsa de Bogotá, 1928), Medellín (Bolsa de Medellín, 1961) and O ...

Federal Reserve System The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States of America. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a ...

, 'Banco de Bogotá S.A., Order Approving Establishment of an Agency'. June 11, 2001

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grupo Aval Acciones Y Valores, Sa Colombian brands Companies based in Bogotá Companies listed on the Colombia Stock Exchange Investment companies of Colombia

Operations

History

Regulation

See also

References

External links