ABSTRACT
The company was incorporated in Panama on January 26, 1970. Panama was chosen because of its location inside Latin America and because its government does not tax income from business conducted outside of its borders. The company was named the Latin American Agribusiness Development (LAAD) Corporation. The Articles of Incorporation gave each shareholder the right to appoint one director to the board. Certain restrictions were added to those Articles, such as a right of first refusal on the sale of shares to new stockholders, designed to insure the philosophical integrity of the company over the long term. The company first approached the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a US government-funded corporation providing political risk insurance and loans to support private American investment in the Third World. The logic of an OPIC-LAAD partnership was there, but OPIC required 95 percent beneficial American ownership of all its clients incorporated overseas.
