What does mageba do?

Mageba is a Swiss company headquartered in Switzerland. It is one of the world's leading suppliers of structural bearings, expansion joints and other high-quality products and services for the transport infrastructure and building construction sectors. Over the past 10 years, mageba has also significantly expanded its range of products and services related to earthquake protection and structural monitoring.

How long have you been active in Colombia?

Since November 2018 (with mageba) and personally since 2007 (but previously with other companies).

Why is Colombia an attractive market for your company?

Especially because of the range of products and services related to seismic protection and structural monitoring. Colombia is for us the Commercial Office for the Andean Region, a region constantly affected by earthquakes and with corresponding “seismic-resistance” standards. In addition, large investments are being made in infrastructure projects in the region (e.g. the so-called “4G highways” in Colombia).

What difficulties did you face when planning to establish your subsidiary in Colombia?

Our main questions were how to establish our subsidiary in Colombia, its relationship with the parent company in Switzerland, how to manage customer and intercompany payments (including exchange rate considerations) and finally how to optimize the tax burden taking into account the Double Taxation Treaty between Colombia and Switzerland.

How did Ongresso help you and what services did it provide?

Ongresso was very quick in analyzing and understanding our situation, suggesting and visualizing different options, benchmarking and comparing the pros and cons of each option, and finally making a conclusive recommendation on the best solution, which was accepted and implemented by our top management.

Would you recommend Ongresso, why?

I would definitely recommend Ongresso to all companies interested in starting business in Colombia and that have little or no experience in local legislation and the “rules of doing business”. Having a clear analysis of the possible options BEFORE creating a local company is crucial and a prerequisite to avoid big surprises during operations, allowing to optimize costs and, very important in Colombia, to stay fully compliant with the complicated local legislation (taxes, imports, etc.).