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MIAMI-- When Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959, he set in motion events that would influence the mortgage market here in America's tropical financial hub, starting a cycle that some believe is near completion.
If Castro had not established his communist dictatorship, 15-year-old Raimundo "Ray" Castellanos might have stayed in Holguin, his hometown in the mountains of eastern Cuba where his grandfather was once mayor. He might have joined his father in the lumber business or landed a position in an uncle's pharmaceutical manufacturing company.
Instead, Castellanos, with his parents and two sisters and a million other islanders, fled Cuba in 1958 for southern Florida. Since then, Castellanos and other Cuban-Americans have built one of the largest Hispanic-owned financial institution in the country, AIB Financial Group Inc.
Castellanos today serves as president of AIB Mortgage Co., a subsidiary of the $90 million parent. AIB Financial owns Union American Insurance Co. and first entered the property and casualty field as American Insurance Brokers, or AIB.
"Hispanic Business magazine called AIB Financial Group the thirty-seventh largest Hispanic-owned company in the nation and the fourth largest financial firm," Castellanos said.
Castellanos' Cuban heritage helped forge his vision of mortgage banking and real estate investment, It nourishes his optimism in Miami, which he and many other south Floridians call "the financial capital of Latin America."
"One hundred percent of the first Cuban refugees to America had nothing," he said. "We had no money to do the laundry. We acquired wealth through hard work and exploiting our culture."
Such exploitation means serving and enriching your cultural base, according to Castellanos. His vision includes seeking financial opportunities throughout Latin America. He met with REFT during a recent conference on Latin American markets at the elegant Fountainbleau Hotel.
"Miami is a natural for Latin America," Castellanos said. "and southern Florida stands to gain the most from new opportunities to the south. We deal with investors in Latin America--Venezuela, Brazil, Costa Rica, Panama, II and Columbia."
Castellanos and AIB Mortgage have done well by forging relationships in Miami and in Latin America using the cultural connection. AIB originated about $100 million...