Nº 001 · Launch quarter · By invitation Tuani Media
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A private circular on the isthmusGuatemala to PanamáThree mornings a week

The capital, companies and families shaping Central America.

Deals, land, family enterprise and the money moving through seven countries, reported for the people doing the moving. No wire copy. No comment section. Readers are known to us by name.

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Tuani
tuá·ni. Nicaraguan Spanish for a thing done properly. The standard we hold ourselves to.
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Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. 6:30 am Central (UTC−6). Six to nine minutes.
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English and Spanish. Names, figures and dates.
  • Guatemala
  • Belize
  • El Salvador
  • Honduras
  • Nicaragua
  • Costa Rica
  • Panamá
Charter

Central America is covered from outside, late, and in the wrong register. The region's owners read about their own markets in wire copy written for someone else.

Tuani exists to correct that. We report what is actually changing hands on the isthmus, who is behind it and on what terms, for a readership small enough to be addressed by name. We take no partner we would not run under our own byline, we label every interest we hold, and we do not publish a figure we have not seen on paper.

If that is the brief you have been waiting for, request it. If you were referred, say by whom.

The EditorsSan José · Ciudad de Panamá · October 2026

Six desks

What we cover, and what we leave to everyone else.

Capital & Deals

Who is buying, selling and lending

Private transactions, regional banks, family offices, the funds raising for the isthmus and the terms they are getting.

Land & Real Assets

Coast, coffee, cacao, energy

Pacific and Caribbean frontage, agricultural estates, hydro and solar, the titles behind them and who holds them.

Family Enterprise

Succession and the second generation

The groups that run the region's retail, beverages, cement and finance, and what happens when they change hands.

Fintech & Payments

Remittances, rails and the dollar

Dollarized economies, remittance corridors, the licences being issued and the banks being built on top of them.

Nearshoring & Infrastructure

Ports, parks and the Canal

Free zones, the Canal's water and rates, Caribbean ports, and the manufacturers moving in under CAFTA-DR.

The Private Life

Where the region's capital lives

Antigua, Granada, the Papagayo coast, Casco Viejo. Homes, clubs and art. Seldom, and only when it matters.

Nº 001 · Launch issue · Saturday 24 October 2026Three briefs · researched and sourced
Capital & DealsPanamá

Cuscatlán closes the US$1.418 billion purchase of Banistmo

A Salvadoran family group displaces Colombian capital in Panama's fifth-largest bank, in the year's largest financial transaction on the isthmus.

Grupo Cibest, parent of Bancolombia, completed the sale of 100% of Banistmo to Banco La Hipotecaria, a subsidiary of Inversiones Cuscatlán Centroamérica, on 30 June 2026 at US$1.418 billion, per Cibest's 6-K filings with the SEC. The deal was announced on 18 December 2025. Banistmo carried assets above US$10.4 billion and a loan book above US$7.2 billion, per the Superintendencia de Bancos.

It follows Cuscatlán's 2025 purchases of La Hipotecaria and Guatemala's Banco Inmobiliario, and runs alongside BAC's absorption of Multibank, authorised by the SBP on 15 May and a single entity from 9 June. Watch the integration, the leverage behind the purchase, and Cibest's redeployment: an extraordinary dividend of COP 1.2 trillion was paid on 1 September.

Grupo Cibest 6-K, 30 Jun 2026 · Cibest 2Q26 6-K · Estrategia & Negocios · Infobae, SBP on BAC–Multibank

Land & Real AssetsGuanacaste · members

Papagayo consolidates under Mohari as Liberia nears two million passengers

A single owner on the peninsula, a St. Regis for 2027, record airport traffic, and the two constraints that decide the next decade: water and title.

On 21 July 2026 Mohari Hospitality bought Gencom's 30% of the 2,200-acre Peninsula Papagayo (Four Seasons, Andaz, Nekajui, Marina Papagayo) and became sole owner; price undisclosed. Solana broke ground on St. Regis Papagayo in September 2025: 120 keys and 143 residences from about US$3 million, opening early 2027. Waldorf Astoria Punta Cacique opened in April 2025 with 188 rooms. Guanacaste Aeropuerto handled 1,973,831 passengers in 2025 (+3.3%) and 798,000 in Q1 2026 (+12%); Coriport's concession ends in 2030.

The constraints are water and title. AyA's president said in June 2026 that in some zones the systems can no longer issue new availabilities; PAACUME, the US$425 million Bajura water project, was 18.6% complete in February with delivery set for 2030. Two maritime-zone bills, 22.553 and 25.157, the latter committee-approved on 17 March, would loosen concession rules and face academic and NGO opposition. Watch the plenary votes and the PAACUME dam award.

Mohari–Gencom, Hotel Online · Tico Times · Delfino, LIR traffic · El Financiero, AyA

Fintech & PaymentsEl Salvador

Remittances slow to 3.5% as the IMF waives the Bitcoin breach and Chivo goes private

US$7.62 billion through September against 18.5% growth a year earlier; the Fund released US$138 million on 1 October and now draws the perimeter for every licence in the country.

Remittances reached US$7,619 million in January–September 2026, up 3.5% from US$7,359 million, after 18.5% growth in 2025 and a full-year 2025 total of US$9,988 million (BCR). July brought the first monthly decline, −1% at US$864 million. Through July, remittance houses moved US$3,217 million (+1%) and banks US$2,428 million (+7.1%); crypto wallets carried US$41 million, 0.7% of the total.

On 1 October the IMF Board completed the second and third reviews of the US$1.4 billion programme, disbursing about US$138 million with waivers for the unmet Bitcoin-accumulation criteria; Chivo's majority has passed to a private operator and the Fund wants the Digital Asset Issuance Law amended. Bitfinex holds a DASP licence from CNAD, and on 29 September Monetae won SSF approval to absorb AirPak's e-money licence. Watch the US 1% remittance tax, TPS expiry for more than 230,000 Salvadorans, and the digital-asset amendments.

IMF, 1 Oct 2026 · Infobae, BCR July data · BCR via Prensa Latina, 24 Oct · E&N, Bitfinex · Diario El Salvador, Monetae

Membership

Three ways to read. The brief is the front page; membership is the file.

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The desk

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Partners

Six partners a quarter. Named, labelled, never more.

Partners reach a readership of owners, allocators and operators across the isthmus. Placements are sold by desk and by reader segment, reported in aggregate, and carried in the brief and in the room at events. Every placement is marked as a partnership, including any company in which Tuani Media holds an interest.

Three of six founding-partner slots remain for the launch quarter

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Rooms

Small rooms in the cities that matter.

Thirty to sixty people, one subject, no stage. Members first; partners may underwrite a room, never the conversation.

  • Ciudad de PanamáPrivate credit on the isthmus: who lends, at what, to whom.
  • Antigua GuatemalaA succession dinner for second-generation operators. Twenty-four seats.
  • San JoséThe coast: titles, water and the next decade of Guanacaste.