Bladex, Inc. Class E (BLX) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Bladex First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. A slide presentation is accompanied in today's webcast and is also available on the Investors section of the company's website, www.bladex.com. There will be an opportunity for you to ask questions at the end of today's presentation. Please note today's conference call is being recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Salas, Chief Executive Officer. Sir, please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Blythe's results for the first quarter of 2026. I will begin with a brief overview of our quarter, then Annette, our CFO, will walk you through the financials in greater detail. After that, I will come back with an update on strategy execution, some thoughts on the macro environment, and our outlook for the rest of the year. Finally, we will open the line for questions. We began 2026 with a very strong quarter in terms of balance sheet growth. while maintaining solid profitability in a highly competitive environment with very tight spreads and wide-open capital markets for lifetime issuers. The main highlight of the quarter was the continued expansion of our commercial portfolio. We reached a record of $12 billion, up 8% quarter-over-quarter and 13% year-over-year. This was fully in line with the growth path we have been discussing in previous quarters and supported by the additional capital flexibility provided by the AT1 issuance completed last year. Growth was driven mainly by medium-term transactions across Colombia, Brazil, and Guatemala. On the funding side, deposits once again reached record levels. closing the quarter at $7.3 billion, up 11...