São Paulo, June 8,2006— A special dialogue with leading international and regional institutional investors will take place in Buenos Aires, when the  Latin American Corporate Governance Roundtable and Companies Circle meet from June 21-23  to discuss ways to support better corporate governance in the region.

The Companies Circle meeting, to take place on June 21, will promote an exchange of ideas and experiences between leading practitioners of good corporate governance among Latin American companies and international and regional investors.  The Roundtable meeting will follow on 22-23 June, continuing the dialogue among companies and investors, and expanding it to involve regulators, stock exchanges and other stakeholders interested in promoting corporate governance improvements in the region.

Investors expected to participate include representatives of international institutions such as TIAA-Cref, Citigroup, Capital Group, Hermes Pension Management, Paradigm Capital, CalPERS and the Wisconsin state investment board; and a range of institutional investors from Argentina, Brazil and Chile from the private sector as well as pension funds and public institutions such as the Brazilian National Development Bank (BNDES).

The Circle also plans to announce shortly the addition of five new members from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru.  Several Argentinean companies have also been invited to attend the Companies Circle meetings as guests, to facilitate their consideration as possible members of the Circle in the future.

The Companies Circle of the Latin American Corporate Governance Roundtable

The Companies Circle was launched in 2005 by the Latin American Corporate Governance Roundtable, which invited 8 founding companies to come together in order to exchange experience and to publicize the positive returns they have obtained through better corporate governance.

Founding members include Argos from Colombia, Buenaventura from Peru, and CCR, CPFL, Natura, NET, Suzano and Ultrapar, from Brazil.  CEOs, CFOs and other senior executives of these firms work to showcase how leading Latin American companies can implement good corporate governance, and the benefits their firms have experienced from undertaking these improvements.

The Companies Circle has produced a booklet, "Case Studies of Good Corporate Governance Practices"  (available in English, Portuguese and Spanish  that presents the experiences from the eight founding members to serve as a reference and inspiration for other companies in the region. The cases highlight the motivations as well as the impacts achieved as a result of implementing good governance.

The Latin American Corporate Governance Roundtable

The Roundtable will be meeting for the 7th time since it was founded in 2000. Bringing together regulators, stock exchanges, the private sector and other stakeholders annually in different Latin American countries, the Roundtable is known for its recommendations for legal, regulatory, institutional and private sector reforms, needed to strengthen governance and promote investment in the region.  These recommendations are  set out in the Latin American White Paper on Corporate Governance (see http://www.oecd.org/daf/corporate-affairs/roundtables).

The Roundtable is organized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in co-operation with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the  World Bank Group, and with the support of the Global Corporate Governance Forum and local co-hosts and co-sponsors.

The Roundtable discussion will focus particularly on strengthening incentives for investors to contribute to better corporate governance, highlighting promising stock exchange initiatives from the region, and supporting efforts to improve corporate governance of non-listed companies.

For more information, visit www.ifc.org.