In September dental care provider OdontoPrev reached more than 5.4m clients, according to the company’s 3Q earnings report, accounting for a growth of 879,000 dental plan beneficiaries in the past 12 months. Its ebitda rose by 25% in the quarter to R$46m y-o-y and net operating revenue grew by 23% y-o-y to R$215m. OdontoPrev’s adjusted ebitda margin in 3Q grew by 40 bps y-o-y to 21.2%.

OdontoPrev’s strong 3Q performance reinforces our view that the dental and healthcare segment in Brazil will continue to see robust growth in spite of a weaker GDP forecast for 2011. This is in part the result of strong fundamentals such as an ageing population and rising incomes, as I wrote in the Financial Times Brazil Confidential last week, in the article “Healthcare: A whirlwind of activity”.

Brazil’s continued tight labour market has also contributed to the expansion of corporate healthcare and dental plans among SMEs, which saw OdontoPrev’s typical dental care plan, or average ticket, rise to R$13.91 per month in the third quarter, up by 2.3% from 2Q11. OdontoPrev started selling to SME’s last year through Bradesco’s banking network, and will be bringing in dental plans for individuals at Bradesco branches in 2012.

The company’s stock price rose 8% in the first 10 months of 2011, compared to a drop of 12% for the healthcare sector as a whole, and a fall of 14% for the Ibovespa. One reason for this is OdontoPrev’s strong cash flow generation and dividend payments, which has become all the more important as uncertain market conditions spur investors to seek less risky returns.

“In today’s market place, OdontoPrev’s shares represent a very safe harbour for more and more portfolio managers,” investor relations officer at OdontoPrev, Jose Pacheco, told Brazil Confidential. OdontoPrev has paid almost R$700m to investors since its IPO in December 2006, while its share price has risen by 288%.

In the third quarter OdontoPrev was cash-positive, with zero debt. However, it’s net cash position fell by almost 13% Q-o-Q, from R$202m in June to R$176m in September. OdontoPrev’s general and administrative expenses not included in its adjusted ebitda base rose by 204% in 3Q11, y-o-y, to R$5.1m. That was mostly due to acquisition expenses, which rose from R$267,000 in 3Q10 to R$3.7m this quarter. Its total administrative expenses accounted for 17.7% of its net operating revenue during 3Q. It also posted a higher dental loss ratio, which rose by 230bps y-o-y to 51.4% in the quarter.

OdontoPrev has not yet released the terms of its joint venture agreement with Banco do Brasil, which was announced in August last year. It is expected to start offering plans at Banco do Brasil outlets at the start of 2012.

Anecdotal evidence abounds in Brazil of homes doubling and even trebling in value in the last few years in some of the wealthiest areas of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In Brazil Confidential I take a look at some of the figures fuelling the debate.

Cyrela Brazil Realty (CYRE3:SAO) is suffering the growing pains of a booming property market. Full article available in Brazil Confidential.

“I have found a place for you – and it has wifi!” reads the title of an email sent to me by a Brazilian friend in Rio de Janeiro. Two sentences in, and my finger has already hit the delete button. “Copacabana, R$1.300.00/month + electricity and gas.” At an equivalent GDP£486.00, US$781.00, and €562.00 euros per month plus utilities for a room in a shared apartment, that’s already more than I was paying in London last year. But for an apartment in Rio de Janeiro’s south zone, in fact, it isn’t bad.

Last year prime office space in Rio overtook New York as the most expensive in the Americas for the first time, according to a Financial Times report in February. Prime office rentals and associated costs in downtown Rio rose 47 per cent to US$1,321.00 per square meter – up by US$61 more than that in midtown New York. The findings put Rio in fourth place for the most expensive property markets in the world, after Hong Kong with $2,644 per sq m, London’s West End with $2,563 and Tokyo with $1,827.

While indicative of Brazil’s surging economy, for ordinary Cariocas (as Rio residents are known), the city’s property boom has effectively put its most desirable area – the south zone – off limits. Today, the popular beach districts of Ipanema, Leblon and Copacabana are among the most expensive areas in Latin America, populated by only the rich and super rich. Rio’s middle classes are concentrated in the north and west, while its poorest residents live within the city’s spiralling favelas, or shantytowns.

Though for some luck ones, the property boom has been a blessing. Mr. Lima, now retired, bought his 3-bedroom apartment in Copacabana over 30 years ago, and has seen the price triple. Worth over R$1m, he is now drawing up an inventory and intends to sell. Others are making a profit by investing with the intention of flipping properties later on. But there is some question over whether the market could see a crash similar to that in the US in 2008, which sparked the worldwide financial crisis.

Yet there are a few reasons why Rio might just keep rising. Unlike the US, Brazil’s property market is not underpinned by debt, and many people are becoming bona fide first-time buyers. Brazil’s mortgage market is in its infancy, and according to real estate developer PD Realty, demand – not speculation – is driving up prices.

Rio’s economy has been boosted by vast oil discoveries of its coast in recent years, and a strong currency. Last year, Brazil’s GDP growth by 7.5% and is expected to rise by 4.5% in 2011. This, coupled with the upcoming mega-events, the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics hosted by Rio, suggest that a drop in prices is unlikely for another six years at least.

While most living in Rio grumble about the cost (myself included) there are others who say it’s about time. As Jim Kappler noted in a comment posted on the Rio Times, “there is limited space in the [south zone]. It is prime real estate for both tourists and residents. When you visit New York, do you complain about the price of apartments overlooking Central Park?”

Santiago Ayala is only 10 years old, but from the moment he struts on stage before an enthralled 1,000-strong audience, his salsa dancing skills are evident.

Read more about Cali’s homegrown salsa movement Delirio on the BBC here.

As the Middle East copes with revolutionary upheaval, across the Atlantic – in the region known for a history of popular uprisings – there are cricket noises.

Like the rest of the world, Latin Americans are glued to their television sets watching the events in Egypt unfold, as two weeks of protests have brought the 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak to an abrupt end.

A number of commentators have questioned whether other emerging markets could follow suit, but there is little to suggest that Latin American countries are ripe for revolution. That is not to say, however, that there are not lessons to be learned from the Egyptian experience.

Egypt is one of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s CIVETS, consisting of Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa. The CIVETS are a less memorably named sub-group of emerging economies that fall just under the mighty BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China).

Such countries have caught the eye of financial analysts for their fast-paced growth rates. According to a United Nations report released in January, emerging economies attracted more than half of the world’s foreign direct investment in 2010, and for the first time outperformed the developed markets.

But behind the success story, a common feature of these adolescent markets is substantial social inequalities. The richest man in the world, Carlos Slim, is from Mexico – a country where, in asset terms, just under than half the population live below the poverty line.

Egypt’s 30% unemployment rate – whether the country could boast CIVET membership or not – was a bitter pill to swallow for the majority of the population. And the Egyptian people fought back.

Now as the western world looks cautiously to see whether a domino effect in the Middle East and elsewhere will take hold, the sustainability of growth markets has come into question. Does the quick ascension of these countries, which so often leaves a majority in the dust at the expense of a small minority, create the preconditions for an Egypt-like scenario?

Of course in Egypt the peoples’ rejection of authoritarian rule was a driving factor, while in Latin America, the region has widely embraced democracy. Moreover, the growth of a thriving consumer middle class in countries like Brazil, Colombia and Chile has done much to assuage some of the greater excesses of their ultra-fast economic progress. Initiatives like the Growth Acceleration Programme (PAC) in Brazil, which focuses on raising the country’s lowest income sectors out of poverty, also serve to ease the burden.

But that is not to say that Latin America is immune. One key symptom of the emerging market contagion in the region is huge infrastructure disparities. One only needs to look at the feeble El Dorado airport, surrounded by half-constructed highways leading to the sprawling metropolis of Bogota to understand the gravity of the problem.

“Colombia is experiencing an unprecedented boom in natural resource exploitation, but transportation and export infrastructure has not kept pace with this,” explains Juan Ricardo Noero, the president of California-based construction firm Pacific Infrastructure. And Colombia is not alone.

As Brazil readies to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, there is huge concern over the country’s ailing infrastructure network – which will need investments of $36 billion.

Though an Egypt-style revolution is unlikely to materialise among angry Bogota commuters (those stuck in Monday morning rush hour may differ in opinion) it does serve as a sharp reminder to Latin American governments to take care that the growth of their economies does not become lopsided.

Colombian coffee growers are facing low production levels in light of severe weather fluctuations and heavy rains. My article on the BBC investigates how they are coping.

This is the part that no one tells you about.  Sitting at home, staring at a computer screen for two days waiting for editors to call and story ideas to materialise. I could be in London, save for speaking Spanish to the lady at the Laundromat – who just managed to make out from my gesturing that the clothes needed washing, not dry cleaning.

That is not to say that Colombia has not left a deep impression. Far from the gun-wielding drug dealers and guerilla fighters that make the headlines of international news, more pervasive is the great warmth and generosity of the people I have encountered from Bogota to Medellin to the warm Caribbean coast of San Andres island.

Handing over a crumbled bag of dirty laundry after nearly two weeks travelling, I walked out of the Laundromat in El Poblado and was instantly hit by the warm sun of Medellin, dubbed ‘la ciudad de la eterna Primavera’ for good reason.  Then, I was hit by a giant metal bar protruding from the ground.

Giving out a wounded animal yelp, I hobbled to the corner of the street and sat down to examine the bloody mess that used to be my big toe. As fate would have it, this was the very same toe that collided with a cement block at the bottom of a favela in Rio de Janeiro in November.

Suddenly, the laundry lady rushed to my rescue, helping me to hop my way back to the Laundromat and into her house. Fighting back pangs of pain and tears, I was able to make out that her husband – who instantly appeared brandishing a needle the size of my foot – was a nurse. After 15 minutes of delirious protestations, I gave in – give me the needle! That was before I realised where it was going. Lying on my stomach on the laundry lady’s cot, I closed my eyes and gripped a pillow as the shot was administered.  My suffering was rewarded with a gingerbread cookie, antiseptic cream, and a whopping dose of painkillers that the laundry lady’s husband bought from a nearby pharmacy.

Resting on the cot for half an hour or more, I was soon able to walk again, and could not thank the couple enough for their kindness. Would they accept a small fee for the pills, the shot? Not at all. Three times they refused the money offered, all I could do was get into the taxi they hailed for me and return to my hostel, bruised and overwhelmed by the kindness of Colombia.

Back in Bogota, my toe has healed as much as you could expect. And, despite my general concern about snagging enough commissions to ‘make journalism pay’ in the coming weeks, I am determined to show people a different side of Colombia in the pieces I produce.  My next stop will be Cali – Salsa capital.  And even better, while watching these world class dancers strut their stuff I have the perfect excuse to hide my own meek salsa moves – my miserable toe.

It is common to hear taxi drivers grumble about traffic in the city – but in Bogotá, there is more reason to complain than most.

On the route from El Dorado international airport, the highway is lined with plastic tape where abandoned machines sit next to mounds of dirt and concrete slabs. The roads are dug up completely – but there is not a single construction worker in sight.

“Es el mayor problema en Bogotá,” explains the taxi driver irritably. “Es la corrupción”.

The much needed road repairs from the airport to the city centre have come to a standstill after it was revealed that the construction company contracted to do the work, the family-run Nule Group, was involved in an alleged Ponzi scheme. With no money to pay the workers, the project has been abandoned.

Meanwhile, Bogotá major Samuel Moreno is facing accusations that his administration took bribes and favoured a small group of contractors who lacked the knowledge and resources to take on major public works. Such stories are common in Colombia – where corruption in the construction industry has long been the norm.

Even before the worst flooding in 30 years hit the South American country in recent weeks, destroying millions of homes and devastating roads and highways, the country’s transport network was in dire straits; one journalist said that Colombia’s transport infrastructure is worse than Venezuela and Peru, despite Colombia’s greater economic development.

Unsurprisingly, the traffic congestion in Bogotá is a common topic among its frustrated residents, and most will recant bitterly how the government promised to bring in a metro network 10 years ago.

The government’s answer to a metro system was installed in 2000 as a cheaper alternative: El TransMilenio, or the high-speed Bogotá bus system. Today marks the 10^th birthday of El TransMilenio – and in case it may have gone unnoticed, the buses read “Feliz cumpleaños TransMi” where the route is usually displayed.

Most colombianos will admit that the city is better for El TransMilenio. But as roads continue to deteriorate and the population of Bogotá grows, it could be that the worst is yet to come.

One Colombian journalist explained that with the rise of the consumer middle classes, there are more cars on the road then there used to be five years ago. “Wait till after Christmas”, he said forebodingly. “That’s when everyone gets back from their holidays.”

But rather than expanding the transport network, it is in fact contracting – with more and more roads being closed off for repairs.  When a road is under construction a banner is hung from sign posts alerting drivers that the road is closed. Before this was explained to me, I thought the banners were used to indicate street numbers because there are so many of them.

I’d like to say that forward planning led me to choose a flat in Chapinero, where traffic congestion is slightly mitigated since I am based between the two most important locations for a journalist in the city: La Candaleria – the city centre, populated by Bohemian Colombian students and government offices – and the northern zone – the heart of the city’s financial district. But after arriving for the fifth flat viewing in a day, following hours of clawing my way through Bogota traffic, the decision came down to pure exhaustion.

Wikileaks strikes again. The release of secret diplomatic US cables has cast a rare light on US thinking and that of its allies – and the glow is wholly unflattering.

From revelations that the Saudi Arabian King Abdullah petitioned the US to bomb Iran to the admission that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for spying on UN members, the leak has become an early Christmas gift for the media that keeps on giving. And the mortification for diplomats and those in power is all too amusing to watch: today, Prince Andrew flew to New York to make an excruciatingly embarrassing apology after a cable revealed an expletive-laden rant he gave to British businessmen during a trip to Kyrgyzstan had offended US officials.

But the leak has done more than cause a few red faces. It has shown that no one government has the power to prevent the disclosure of secret information around the world. This will make it harder for diplomats to maintain the same level of trust and openness with their foreign counterparts. Even with tightened security, the US must prove to others that it has shielded itself from not only Wikileaks but potential copycats.

Yet despite the threat to future state secrets, most analysts are unconvinced by the US and UK governments’ claim that lives are at risk because of the leak.

As the BBC’s Adrian Henriques writes, “the consensus so far among commentators seems to be that America has been embarrassed, rather than strategically damaged, by this release.”

This is because none of the disclosures could be classified as bombshell revelations – just plain old fashion Realpolitik. The cables are more Machiavellian than might be approved of by the public, but there is nothing in them that a seasoned political observer would not already assume.

As Benedict Brogan writes on his Telegraph blog:

“The Saudis would like someone to whack Iran? No kidding. Afghanistan is run by crooks? Really? Hillary Clinton would like to know a lot more about the diplomats she is negotiating against? You surprise me. The Russian government may have links to organised crime? Pass the smelling salts, Petunia. The Americans are secretly whacking al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen? What, you thought the Yemenis were doing it? Muammar Qaddafi has a full time, pneumatic Ukrainian ‘nurse’? Nice one. Diplomats are terrified of Pakistan’s nukes? Me too. And so on, ad infinite boredom.”

If there was a cause for a public outcry, it was the Wikileaks’ release of the Afghanistan war logs in July. The logs contained up to 77,000 secret records of US military incidents in the Afghanistan war and 400,000 similar documents on Iraq, which catalogue excessive civilian deaths and other abuses at the hands of US and UK forces. But five months on, and this has all but been forgotten.

For now, the leaked cables have whetted public appetite for transparency. Like the public expenses scandal in the UK, the incident has sparked interest in what governments get up to behind closed doors. But just as the release of the war logs made headlines and then petered out without consequence, many will wonder if the leak will have a real impact on US foreign policy and that of its allies in years to come.