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Is your company ready to work in Latin America?

Latin America has several challenges that your company must prepare for.

Why Scopus?

We combine Swiss quality, trust and reliability with many years of experience and knowledge on site in Latin America.

We minimize your risks, optimize your cost structure and make you sustainably fit for the Latin American market.

Corruption, fraud and nepotism are the biggest hidden costs for businesses in Latin America. We detect them and support you with sustainable prevention.

Stay sustainable and avoid travel expenses. We are also present and ready for you in the event of flight restrictions or other travel uncertainties (COVID19).

Even in case of lockdowns in Latin America, we work with advanced and modern tools and methods to work remotely.

Swiss certified public accountants (Swiss CPA) with experience in top international companies and institutions lead the interdisciplinary and international SCOPUS team on site. We are three to four times more competetive than well-known finance and consulting companies

Services

Based on long-term international experience in leading positions in top industrial and financial firms we provide you internal audit services and audit support. We fully follow international trading standards, we are familiar with state-of-the-art methods and tools and our legal experts have in-depth know-how of local legal requirements. We act as your local partner and agent and as such with single goal of providing value added. This includes finding strong market player in your industry and connect distributors. We can also deal with authorities and governmental institutions in order to obtain relevant permits (i.e. customs, environmental and technical permits). Service range consists of taking over an assignment based on work performed in order to establish contacts to distributors as well as act as agent based on contractual commissions (exclusively or non-exclusively).

YOUR ADDED VALUE:

  • Comfort of management that sales are growing and market entry successful
  • Network to local industrial distributors and governmental institutions
  • Low costs
  • Compliance with national and international trade regulation
  • Avoid legal cases, litigation, and claims
  • Protection of reputation
  • High turn over and profit

We can implement a lean but necessary internal control system. We advise and support you by reviewing the entire governance structure, risk management and giving comfort on a local level but also for the headquarter abroad.

We review and give recommendation on legal compliance, tax compliance and financial compliance. This includes mainly corruption and fraud risks, anti-money-laundering regulation, fair competition regulation and other legal requirements such as occupational health and safety, environmental regulation, and contract management.

We review contracts with suppliers, agents, and employees. Also, we provide background checks on local staff or suppliers. We review financial compliance or for instance the procurement department with regards to corruption and bribery risks. Furthermore, we establish contacts to authorities, law firms and regulators.

Our experience showed us, that in most cases, there is a significant potential for cost saving and improvement of the organizational set up to avoid non-compliance, fraud and especially corruption.

YOUR ADDED VALUE:

  • Cost reduction
  • Headquarter abroad has comfort on proper operations
  • Reduction of reputational risks and litigation and claims and therewith potential costs
  • Compliance with local and international regulation
  • Reliance on third parties (i.e., suppliers), local management and staff
  • Proper risk reporting

Local expertise in law and business as well as culture, combined with our profound know how in Corporate Finance, allows us to act as your trusted advisor in all corporate finance activities.

Do you want to know the price of your entity, would like to acquire a local company, and need support on the investment decisions (financial, tax, legal due diligence, valuation), do you need to reorganize the set-up of legal entities? Our team of experts in (local) law and finance will support you.

We help you to optimize the structure of your organization with regards to both, tax optimization and cost saving.

YOUR ADDED VALUE:

  • Transparence on potential investments
  • Valuation of own companies or on potential investments
  • Get effective legal entity structure and safe cost
  • Cultural understanding in own firm but also for investments

We support you and give advice in all kind of accounting and financial reporting related activities. Whether to prepare a reporting package, preparing or translating accounting manual, prepare the financial statement, review figures before external audit takes place, prepare MIS, statistics and management reporting, overview liquidity management, follow up on issues brought up in management letter of external auditors. We simply provide fully financial compliance and the key figures and reports to manage your company.

YOUR ADDED VALUE:

  • Focus on operation and innovation
  • Reliance on financial reporting
  • Reduce external audit cost and issues brought up in management letters
  • Comply with headquarters’ reporting
  • Get spreadsheets with key figures to lead your company

We support and advise you in bookkeeping, accounting and internal financial reporting:

Budget and forecasting
Cost accounting and calculation
Preparation of MIS, statistics and dashboards
Liquidity management and liquidity planning
Cash flow management
Tax consultancy
Supplier and contract management (e.g. for tenders, orders)
HR support (e.g. recruiting, remuneration, etc.)

YOUR ADDED VALUE:

  • Focus on operations and innovation
  • Controlling is reliable
  • Adequate personnel selection and personnel management for key positions
  • Correct selection of business partners (e.g. suppliers, agents)
  • Optimized use of equipment and resources

We support and advise you in various areas of IT:

  • Logical and physical access controls to infrastructure
  • Application and data management
  • Systems development lifecycle controls
  • Change management
  • Physical security controls in the data center
  • System and data backup and recovery controls
  • Controls for computer operation
  • Network and interface maintenance
  • Data integrity

YOUR ADDED VALUE:

  • IT security
  • Stable IT infrastructure
  • Avoiding data loss and theft

Team

Roger Schmidt

Partner

Swiss CPA, Certified Swiss Accountant

Roger Schmidt has many years of experience at an international auditing company and was head of group accounting in two multinational companies. He was also involved in numerous due diligences in the Transaction Services department. He was also Vice President of an autonomous Swiss pension fund and a member of the investment committee. Roger was responsible for up to 40 people. He represented Switzerland in the European Union’s Electricity Committee in Brussels. In addition, he was a long-time examiner at the federal CPA exams and was a speaker at various in-house training courses in the areas of trust, cost accounting and financial consolidation. He taught cooperate finance, controlling and international accounting in postgraduate courses in Basel. At an advanced training course at the Basel Management School he graduated as  best in that year. Finally, he is the founder and long-time managing director of a trust and law firm in Medellin, Colombia. Roger’s focus topics are financial reporting and standards, accounting, tax, corporate finance and external audit.

Thomas Christen

Partner

Master of Business University of Berne, Swiss CPA, Certified Internal Auditor

Thomas Christen was first working as compliance officer in anti-money laundering. Afterwards, he joined one of the big audit and accountancy firms in the Audit Financial Services department, responsible for audit and consultancy mandates for main Swiss banks and investment institution. Then, he acted as Senior Manager in the world’s largest cement company, responsible for teams conducting operational and compliance audits as well as fraud investigations. Subsequently, he was the head of competence center at Swiss Federal Audit Office, reporting directly to the Swiss Parliament. As such he was responsible for Anti-Corruption in Switzerland and his teams were investigating reported cases of the national Swiss whistle-blowing hotline. Many of those cases were published by national media. Besides he was teaching at the University of Zurich and in Winterthur. Two years, he was also head of audit department in a middle-sized fiduciary company. His focus topics are audit, financial reporting, corporate governance, compliance, process management and internal control, corporate finance, and M&A.

Serge-Butz

Serge Butz

Lawyer, Consultant, Sales Manager Europe

 

Serge Butz (MLaw, expert in international business law, Switzerland and Colombia) has a track-record in business law in Europe and since 2015 in Colombia. He has several years of experience in the legal department of various international pharmaceutical and chemical companies as well as a major Swiss bank in the area of Compliance. After completing a postgraduate degree in international business law in Bogota, Colombia, he worked as a lawyer in the official law firm of the German-Colombian Chamber of Commerce, after which he took over the leadership for Latin America in a German medical technology company. Serge is expert for international legal matters as well as for compliance and business development. Furthermore, Serge has profound track-record and experience as well as education at one of Colombia’s leading universities in local business law.

Brett

Cyber security expert, consultant, Sales Manager US

Brett brings over 30 years of experience in IT sales and services, software, and consulting, spanning Fortune 500 to early-stage start-ups. He has started several businesses and held senior-level executive positions. Brett is a go-to expert in researching, implementing, and integrating solutions. Brett served 8 years in the US Navy where he excelled and graduated from the US Naval Advanced Electronics and Telecommunications school. Most of his tenure in the Navy was with The White House Communications Agency, serving the President of the United States and designated staff traveling all over the world designing and installing Telecommunications/IT systems.

Marco Vincenti

IT security advisor

Marco Vincenti has many years of experience in system management with a focus on IT security. Before that, he worked in various Swiss companies, with insights and activities in their IT infrastructures and their system-critical work processes. Furthermore he founded an independent IT-advisory company in Colombia, which is cooperating and providing services and infrastructure also to Scopus-partners. Marco is also an expert in audit of IT general controls and provides support to the operational audit teams. Marco has a profound track-record in auditing of IT general controls as well as provide IT support at fraud and corruption investigations.

Estefany Obregon Vasquez

Lawyer and Conciliator

Estefany Obregón Vásquez has 4 years of experience as Minister of Education in Bello Antioquia. She has been working as a real estate and land registry consultant since 2012. In addition, from 2015 she worked as a legal representative and head of the legal department of a law firm, her main responsibilities being contract law, general commercial law, corporate law, labor law and tax law.

Sindy Ramos Castro

Public accountant

Sindy Ramos Castro, has had experience in positions as auditor, financial and economic advisor and tax auditor in various service companies since 2012, with a diploma in Niif standards. She is responsible for the operation of various accounting software and other tools in the area of ​​corporate finance (evaluations, workflow software in the area of ​​corporate finance, M&A and audit). She also worked for several years in a trust company in the bookkeeping and accounting department.

Angela Maritza Castillo Gil

Practicing lawyer and conciliator

Angela Maritza Castillo Gil has been working in the field of civil law since 2015, especially in courts. From 2018 to 2020 she worked in a law firm specializing in migration law, company formation, money laundering prevention and finance. As a lawyer, it is her goal to offer her clients a high-quality service, whereby she can bring in her experience in business ethics from her studies.

Further areas of expertise she oversees are insurance law, contract law and sub-areas of criminal law (especially corruption).

Additionally, we have a large network and contacts to Law Firms, Accountancy Firms, Tax Experts, Security Specialist, IT Providers, Logistics Experts, Regulators, Authorities in South America, the US and in Switzerland.

Scopus Network

We always offer professional support, digitally, efficiently and, if necessary, in cooperation with our network.

SCOPUS is a member of the German-Colombian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and is involved in various areas.

Our law firm or our partners and managers are members of local professional associations, the International Internal Audit Association (IIA, Institute of Internal Auditors), the Swiss External Audit Association (Expertsuisse) and some of our partners are registered with the Federal Audit Oversight Authority (FAOA) in Switzerland and their quality standards in the Obligation to exercise the profession of external auditor.

These memberships require the application of and compliance with national and international standards, norms, and guidelines. Members are required to adhere to these standards, provide the highest quality services, adhere to ethical principles, and undergo annually for continuous professional education and training.

Scopus maintains contacts with science and research. Some of the team members have taught in leading universities and in their companies. In addition, there are good contacts to professors and research in various areas (anti-corruption, audit, law, governance, accounting) at some of the world’s leading universities.

Mission Statement

When added value is created through understanding, professionalism and fairness.

SCOPUS stands for individual solutions in the interests of the customer. We help our customers to create added value. Understanding our customers means taking their position and especially gaining an understanding of their business. The focus is on the success of our customers. Trust and fairness form the basis of a strong partnership. A partnership means to meet at eye level. Our behavior is characterized by professionalism and openness.

  1. We invest in teams and relationships.
  2. We share our knowledge and work together.
  3. We take our customers’ perspective.
  4. We focus on the added value for the customer.
  5. We work efficiently and concentrate on the essentials.
  6. Fairness and transparency are central values for us.
Scopus Partner

Business in Latin America – Oportunities and Challenges

Save Cost and protect your reputation with local expertise, state of the art international service quality at very competitive rates

What is a Swiss Team doing in Latin America?

Contact

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