|
 Brazilian Wilson Amaral de Oliveira, CEO of Gafisa S.A., a leading homebuilding company in Brazil, rang the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) opening bell today, March 16, to celebrate the company's initial public offering on the NYSE. Gafisa, a US$ 1.5 billion corporation, began trading under the ticker symbol "GFA".
"We are privileged to welcome Gafisa S.A. to the NYSE family of listed companies," said NYSE Group, Inc. CEO John A. Thain. "Gafisa is an outstanding addition to the NYSE Group, Inc.'s growing roster of companies from Brazil.
"We look forward to a strong and long term partnership with Gafisa and its shareholders and to providing them with the highest levels of market quality and unsurpassed visibility."
Gafisa S.A. joins other successful Brazilian IPOs on the NYSE including: TAM S.A. (NYSE: TAM), a Brazilian-based international airline company with a market cap of US$ 4.1 billion; CPFL Energia S.A. (NYSE: CPL), a Brazilian energy company with a market cap of US$ 6.5 billion; and Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes S.A. (NYSE: GOL), a Brazilian-based international airline company, whose market cap increased by approximately 300% to US$ 5.1 billion since its 2004 listing.
The listing by Gafisa S.A. brings the total number of NYSE-listed companies from Brazil to 32 with a combined market cap over US$ 410 billion. On average, the NYSE Group, Inc. trades US$ 1 billion in Brazilian ADRs per day.
Gafisa is one of Brazil's leading homebuilding companies, focusing on residential markets. Over the last 50 years, the company has been recognized as one of the foremost professionally-managed homebuilders, having completed and sold more than 900 developments and constructed nearly ten million square meters, believed to be more than any other residential development company in Brazil.
Gafisa is one of the best-known brands in the real estate development market, enjoying a reputation among potential homebuyers, brokers, lenders, landowners and competitors for quality, consistency and professionalism.
NYSE Group, Inc. (NYSE:NYX) operates two securities exchanges: the New York Stock Exchange LLC (the "NYSE") and NYSE Arca, Inc. (formerly known as the Pacific Exchange).
NYSE Group is a leading provider of securities listing, trading and market data products and services. In 2006, on an average trading day, 2.3 billion shares, valued at US$ 86.8 billion, were traded on the exchanges of the NYSE Group.
The NYSE is the world's largest and most liquid cash equities exchange. On December 31, 2006, the operating companies listed on the NYSE represented a total global market capitalization of US$ 25.0 trillion.
NYSE Arca, Inc. operates the former ArcaEx, the first open, all-electronic stock exchange in the United States, which has a leading position in trading exchange-traded funds and exchange-listed securities.
NYSE Arca, Inc. is also an exchange for trading equity options. NYSE Arca, Inc.'s trading platforms provide customers with fast electronic execution and open, direct and anonymous market access.
NYSE Regulation, an independent not-for-profit subsidiary, regulates member organizations through the enforcement of marketplace rules and federal securities laws. NYSE Regulation also ensures that companies listed on the NYSE and NYSE Arca meet their financial and corporate governance listing standards.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
the Brasilian housing market to meet the inevitable increased demand for housing as interest rates fall
and Brasilian banks increase their mortgage lending. Brasil has already gone a long way in
developing its domestic market for government debt. News like this is essential to strengthening
the nascent domestic mortgage market. And, of course, residential construction is a huge jobs generator with positive follow-on effects for the entire economy and especially the working class.