The Companies Circle — created in 2005 by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to gather tangible examples of applied corporate governance in Latin America — will open a public proceeding for new membership applications in the upcoming months. Twelve publicly listed companies are currently part of the initiative: Argos (Colombia), Ferreyros (Peru), Homex (Mexico), ISA (Colombia), and Marcopolo, Natura, Net, Suzano, Ultrapar, CCR, CPFL and Embraer (Brazil). The selection criteria to choose the new companies or determine how many will join haven't yet been defined. However, a guideline previously approved by the group determined that it would be limited to about 20 companies.

According to Sandra Guerra, the Companies Circle's coordinator, there is no hurry to reach that limit. The goal is to assemble a working group with enough variety to execute the programs being developed from now on. The subjects that the Circle intends to address include shareholder and board of directors meeting procedures. "To be a part of this group, it is important that the applicants agree not only to transparently disclose their governance practices to the market, but also show how and why such practices were put in place."

Apart from the Companies Circle's expansion, the group's news for this year include the release in Peru, Colombia and Mexico (in Spanish) of The Practical Guide to Corporate Governance: Experiences from the Latin American Companies Circle. On April 15th, the book was released in Portuguese at the BM&FBovespa's headquarters. The goal is to have all three languages available to everyone on the OECD website very soon.