Leading Paraguay's energy transition
A vertically integrated energy platform in an investment-grade market: river logistics, a national fuel retail network, and domestic ethanol production under one owner.
Almanova Capital
The firm
Almanova Capital is a private investment firm focused on energy and infrastructure in Latin America. We combine institutional-grade investment discipline with decades of hands-on operating experience in the markets where we deploy capital.
Our purpose is to build durable platforms that generate lasting value — for the businesses we back, the communities they serve, and the investors who entrust us with their capital. We are deliberate, long-term, and aligned.
Moody's · S&P
2010–2024
gift or inheritance tax
Full USD repatriation
The opportunity
A fragmented, protected market with no consolidator
Paraguay's fuel market is unusually fragmented: twenty-four distributors, with the four largest holding under sixty per cent between them. It is also protected and growing.
Consumption is at a record. A thirty per cent ethanol blend has been mandated since January 2025, and ethanol imports are banned outright — creating captive domestic demand that can only be met from inside the country. Regional majors have all looked at this market in the last twenty-four months. None has consolidated it.
Our thesis is that the first operator to own the whole chain — the barges, the terminal, the stations, and the ethanol behind the mandated blend — captures a margin no single-link competitor can price against. We are an operator raising capital, not a fund hiring operators: we already run assets in this market.
The platform
Own every link in the chain
Fuel moves upriver on the platform's own barges, through its own terminal, into its own stations. The ethanol plant supplies the mandated blend and ships surplus downriver. Every owned step converts a third-party cost into captured margin.
Waterways
Imported product arrives by barge from Argentina and Brazil and discharges at the platform's own terminal.
Distribution
Product reaches the end customer through a two-brand national network of owned and franchised stations.
Ethanol
A greenfield corn-ethanol plant supplies the blend the network is legally required to sell, and exports the surplus.
Pillar one · Downstream & retail
Distribution
This is where the platform earns its margin. A small number of scale distributors are consolidated onto a single retail platform, bought individually at operator multiples and integrated into one procurement book, one logistics plan and two retail brands — one national, one value.
The network sits on a substantial owned property portfolio. These are assets that de-risk the portfolio — tangible property underpinning the operating business, so the equity is backed by hard collateral rather than goodwill.
- ConsolidationOf a fragmented national market with no incumbent consolidator
- > one thirdOf the national fuel market at build-out, retail and import
- ~2×The share of the next largest operator
- Two brandsPremium and value propositions on one supply chain
Pillar two · Supply & logistics
Waterways
Paraguay is landlocked. Effectively every litre of imported fuel it consumes arrives by river, which makes barge capacity the real bottleneck behind the retail network. Owning the fleet removes a third-party cost from every litre the network sells, and gives the platform a return leg for ethanol and grain that would otherwise sail empty.
- ControlOf the platform's fuel supply, through ownership of the waterway operator
- ~2×Fleet expansion in barges and pushboats at build-out
- Own terminalOwned import and storage capacity, with a further expansion secured
- 12% CAGRCorridor volume growth against a 25M tonne per year market
Mandated fuel blend · since Jan 2025
Ethanol imports are banned. Every litre of the mandated blend sold in Paraguay must be produced domestically.
Pillar three · Production
Ethanol
The blending mandate created captive domestic demand overnight; the import ban means it can only be met from inside the country. We are building a corn-ethanol plant to serve it, feeding the platform's own network first and the wider market second.
Feedstock is not a constraint. Paraguay is the world's fourth-largest soy exporter and produces a substantial corn surplus, most of which currently leaves the country unprocessed and at low value.
- 450M m³Annual captive domestic demand under the mandate
- GreenfieldBuilt to the platform's own offtake, with surplus exported downriver
- Import banStructural protection on domestic production
The country
Paraguay is not the risk most investors assume it is
Two agencies hold Paraguay at investment grade with a stable outlook, and the sovereign carries the lowest public debt burden in Latin America.
The economy has grown at roughly twice the regional rate for a decade and a half, from a fiscal position most of its neighbours do not have. Public debt sits near a third of GDP against a regional average close to two-thirds — the difference between a sovereign with room to absorb a shock and one without it.
The tax regime is flat and simple: ten per cent on corporate profits, eight on capital gains, and no wealth, gift or inheritance tax. There are no exchange controls, and profits repatriate in dollars without restriction. For a family office already carrying Brazilian sovereign and currency exposure, this is diversification rather than more of the same.
Dual investment grade, stable outlook
Roughly twice the LatAm average
No wealth, gift or inheritance tax
Alignment
The sponsor is in the same position as you
The platform is sponsored by a Paraguayan family group that has operated in the country since 1967 and has spent more than five decades in fuel distribution.
It is not a passive backer. It contributes its two core energy assets in kind, as a cornerstone co-investment made alongside investors and on the same terms, not through the manager. Its capital is committed to the same outcome, exposed to the same downside, and realised at the same time. Those contributed assets have been independently valued by a third party.
The investment team has run fuel distribution, river logistics and downstream trading in this market, with a bench drawn from global investment banks, international oil majors and regional fuel retailers. Names, biographies and full governance detail are provided under confidentiality.
Next step
The rest is shared on a call
This page is deliberately short. Fund size and terms, the financial model, target-level detail, the team and the governance framework are shared with qualified investors under a confidentiality agreement — starting with a thirty-minute call.
Introductory call
Thirty minutes with the founding partner.
Confidentiality agreement
We confirm eligibility and execute an NDA.
Data room
Offering documents, financial model and asset diligence.
Management session
Time with the team and a site visit in Paraguay.
Request a call
Tell us who you are and we will respond within two business days. We share materials only with investors who qualify under the exemptions the fund relies on — in Brazil, investidores profissionais under CVM Resolution 30/2021; elsewhere, professional, accredited or equivalent investors under local law.
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What is not on this page
Deliberately withheld until there is a confidentiality agreement in place:
- TermsFund size, fees, hurdle and waterfall
- ReturnsBase, downside and upside cases, and the model behind them
- AssetsNamed portfolio companies, targets and valuations
- PeopleTeam biographies and governance framework
Direct line: amm@almanova.com · +595 981 501 312
Important information
Confidential. This page is furnished solely to the named recipient for the purpose of evaluating a possible investment. It may not be copied, reproduced, forwarded or distributed.
This is not an offer. It does not constitute an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any interest in any fund or other security, in any jurisdiction in which such an offer or solicitation would be unlawful. Any offer will be made solely to eligible investors through a confidential private placement memorandum, a limited partnership agreement and subscription documents, which govern in their entirety and which contain the risk factors, fees, expenses and conflicts of interest applicable to an investment. No securities commission or regulatory authority has approved or passed upon the merits of any investment described here. The fund is not being marketed into the European Union, the United Kingdom or any AIFMD jurisdiction.
Forward-looking statements and risk. Statements about strategy, market share, synergies, construction, blending regulation and exit timing are forward-looking and inherently uncertain; actual outcomes may differ materially. An investment of this kind involves a high degree of risk, including loss of the entire amount invested, and is illiquid and long-term. Risks include, among others, execution and acquisition risk, integration risk, greenfield construction risk, concentration in a single country and sector, use of leverage, currency depreciation, changes in law or in the enforcement of the ethanol blending mandate and import restrictions, reliance on the sponsor, and conflicts of interest arising from related-party and in-kind transactions. The manager is a first-time institutional fund manager with no prior fund-level track record; historical results of the sponsor and its operating businesses are achievements at the operating-company level and are not indicative of, and should not be relied upon as a basis for projecting, returns achievable at the fund level. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
No advice. Nothing here is investment, legal, tax or accounting advice, and no fiduciary relationship is created. Prospective investors should consult their own advisers.