US Ethos enters Portuguese market

The US full service project financing company Ethos, which was founded by a Portuguese entrepreneur, it to expand its project financing portfolio into Europe and Portugal where it plans to capitalise projects starting from €10 million.

Founded by Carlos Santos and based in California, the investment company has a particular focus on the energy, infrastructures, construction and agriculture sectors.
“We’re interested in expanding and having a little more capital in a mature market such as Europe. There aren’t a lot of projects but there are some that could be very interesting and we are beginning to position ourselves to enter the European market and Portugal is a very stable market”, says Carlos Santos to the newspaper Negócios.
Ethos has a capital of around €6.5Bn (US$7.5Bn) of which 80% is applied to generate returns.
These funds have been captured by the company set up by Carlos Santos and two partners using long-term data-based technology between 2012 and 2018 and was used by large investment banks on their own platforms.
“We moved from using technology on our brokerage accounts to internal capital accumulated from fees and returns but we were lacking long-term stability, and so we entered the project financing business”, he said.
Some 20% of its capital of around €1.29Bn (US$1.4Bn) is allocated to 88 projects. “At the moment we are looking for investment opportunities in 72 countries”, the largest market is in the US, followed by Brazil and the United Kingdom.
Santos says there is a vocation and appetite for emerging markets because there is a greater need for capital for infrastructures and large scale projects. In Europe there are many projects linked to energy.
The company is planning to open an office in Portugal in September not just for opportunities on the ground but also because of its highly qualified human resources.