MEXICO CITY-Fibra Uno, the first Mexican REIT, recently completed an IPO and raised about $300 million. The shares, which sold at about $1.61 each, are backed by 16 properties, three of which were purchased with the money raised.

The company had a portfolio of 13 properties throughout the country, a mix of industrial, retail, office and mixed-use sites, totaling about 5.5 million square feet. The new purchases include two retail properties here and near Cancun, totaling almost 100,000 square feet, and a mixed-use site in Cancun of 68,313 square feet.

Micheal Fitzgerald, who heads the Latin American practice at Milbank Tweed, tells GlobeSt.com that more Mexican REITs are expected to emerge. What has held trusts back in the country, he says, were some legislative and tax problems. “Up until now there was no way for investors, other than with Sam Zell or through private equity funds, to invest directly in Latin America. The Mexican states had wanted to tax the contribution of properties to the trusts, called fibra here--that isn’t done in the United States, the federal tax supersedes the states. They finally agreed to go the federal way,” Fitzgerald says.

Now, local investors such as pension plans and institutions can invest in commercial real estate, a stream that the Mexican government is encouraging. Fitzgerald says the economy is healthier than in the United States. “Mexico has had a terrible black eye with drug violence, but their GDP is multiples ahead of ours. They didn’t suffer the banking crisis that we had, and they’re seeing lending. There’s a lot of optimism here,” he says.