You are Roberto Flores, co-founder and general manager of Manufacturas Centroamericanas (MANCA) in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The economy's signals do not agree with one another, and on Thursday you have to tell your leadership team which number you will watch to know, before anyone else, where MANCA's sales are heading.
The situation
MANCA makes hydraulic pumps, pressure cylinders and steel valves for construction and industrial equipment, and sells across Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. It bills about HNL 285 million (lempiras) a year at an 18% EBITDA margin, employs 142 people and runs at 76% of capacity. About 40% of its sales go to construction customers; the rest to energy, telecoms and distributors. It owes HNL 55 million to a local bank at a floating rate: the policy rate plus 3.5 points.
It is Monday, 14 April 2025. Inflation is at 8.3%, above the 4–6% target range, and the central bank has just raised its rate by three quarters of a point, to 8.5%. Urban unemployment has gone from 5.1% to 6.7% in a year, and growth for 2025 is projected at 2.1%, against 4.2% in 2024. In the same email, your head of sales tells you that Grupo Construcciones Mayordomo, the region's largest builder, has shut two projects for lack of financing. Your energy and telecom customers, by contrast, are still investing, and the distributors are saying different things.
You have taken MANCA through three cycles. From 2017 to 2019 revenue grew 24% a year; in 2020 it fell 31% and you had to lay off 18 people. Your team does not read the same thing: María Elena López, the CFO, watches inflation and the rate, because every rise makes the debt dearer; David Castillo, the commercial VP, sees an opportunity in energy and telecoms; Javier Gómez, the head of production, has spent weeks counting construction orders that do not arrive.