and thank you all for coming in Marcelo thank you for coming to see us and sitting down with me for about 10 minutes they tell me um in not in 10 minutes but in about 10 years or just under 10 years at SoftBank my guest Marcelo claurek created around 60 billion dollars of value for SoftBank and he tells me that while at SoftBank he got a little bit frustrated because they were investing about a billion dollars a week and very little of that was going to Latin America and so SoftBank looked down the sofa and found some eight billion dollars and directed that to Latin America to make about an 85 percent return on that Masala left of course soft blank a few months ago yes and and has left many wondering what his next move is Marcelo I know that you are bullish on Latin America in the interest of time I'm just going to cut right through to the chase what is the reality of Latin America becoming the new manufacturer for the world replacing China so I I think Latin America in that regards is incredibly well positioned as we've seen in the geopolitical situation that we live today out of which manufacturing cannot continue to be mainly sourced in China and we see that a lot of companies are basically diversifying their the way they procure the way they manufacture and then due to the proximity of Latin America to an important market like the U. S certainly Latin America will become an important place for supply chain for manufacturing for many Goods so from that end I think it's definitely a Tailwind for Latin America the proximity to the U. S and a pretty stable economy so it was hard to believe that traditionally Latin American economies were the ones that were regarded as hyperinflation and Latin America for the first time was the first one to actually raise interest rates where the currencies today are have not been a battery like other currencies against the dollar so I think Latin America is in a really good position as you relate to the Future one of the few times in the history of Latin America that I would say from a macro perspective is in a very good situation right now it does bring I mean the world Latin America does conjure up images of uh corruption currency devaluations political instability inflation and so on I know you've just addressed that a little while but how do you consider consolidate that into an investment decision so we look at Latin America as a place of opportunity it was a probably the place in the world that had the lowest percentage of Investments of investment in technology companies and others against GDP so that's why we thought it was a great opportunity when you go back to Latin America in 2018 the total amount of venture investing was one billion dollars we deployed nine billion dollars a year later and then today Latin American 2021 we had the most successful year with over 25 billion dollars of capital being invested into Latin America and for that you've developed some pretty amazing companies a few people know that the the largest and most successful digital Bank in the world was a bank that started in Brazil a bank called new bank that probably one of the most well-known health and wellness companies a Brazilian company called gym pass probably one of the best renter companies a company called Quinto and Dad and so on we can continue to provide you know really good examples and from that end you know I think Latin America has a lot of opportunity it has challenges like most part like other parts in the world but I I think when you look at the potential reward versus risk I think Latin America is in a very good situation but there are challenges on both sides on the one side protectionism is a long-standing modest operandi for a lot of Latin American countries not of which Mexico for example and on the other side trade agreements with the U.
S remain you know keep the barriers of trade quite High and I think so if you look at Mexico Mexico has enjoyed a free trade agreement with the U. S and Mexico is probably you know one of the largest suppliers to the US or from that end and then you look at Brazil Brazil traditionally has been a a protectionist economy but on the positive side of Brazil Brazil has a size I mean by 2050 is expected to be in the top six economies in the world so Brazil is a country in which you do local manufacturing to supply to Brazil and Brazil had been an exporter so I think from that end you know I think a lot of markets are opening up and the fact that U.
