Explosive increase of foreign currency accounts in Chile continues

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – At least since the social outburst, several people have been saying it: wealthy Chileans are taking their fortunes out of the country.

The political environment, the new Constitution, the tax changes pushed by the government that takes office in 2022, and a smaller capital market after the successive withdrawals of pension funds have caused lawyers and tax advisors to have an unusual workload advising clients.

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The figures bear witness to this. For example, between August and this week in October, dividends of some US$3 billion have been announced, an amount rarely seen in local companies and with firms such as Vapores of the Luksic family announcing US$450 million; Entel another US$260 million, Copec of the Angelini family US$702 million and Cencosud, of Paulamann another US$ 800 million.

What are they doing with these windfalls? Although they are all very secretive businesses, there are clues to some of them. The Cortés Solari family, for example, shareholders of Falabella, sold the fruit exporter David del Curto to the U.S. company Hancock Natural Resource last year and invested the proceeds (more than US$100 million) in properties in Miami.

Something similar was done by the businessman Claudio Fischer, who, after selling his participation in AquaChile, is investing around US$600 million in office and residential buildings in the United States.

But it is not only high net worth individuals who are on the move. Middle-class clients have also made moves. In the detail of current accounts with balance in foreign currency, the increase in amounts of money deposited and the number of accounts created has grown exponentially since October 2019. One of these records is housed in the Financial Market Commission (CMF).

Until before the social outburst, it was rising at rates of 3% per month, and with several months of setbacks, but only in October 2019 they grew 15%, and since then it has not stopped rising month after month.

And it also sets historical records: never since the CMF had records (2012) had there been so many Chilean individuals with current accounts in foreign currency.

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