These plans are essential to ensure the company meets its own major and highly ambitious goal (called a 'mega'), which requires it to reach revenues of $5 bn by 2015, $1.2 bn of which should come from abroad. The company is on its way to achieving this.

EPM has got plenty of substance to reach this 'mega'. It currently provides water and basic sanitation services to approximately 3.3m people in Medellín and the 10 municipalities of the Valley of Aburrá, and in terms of energy, it is considered to be the country's second biggest company, with 2,605 megawatts of capacity (that is, 20% of the country's total capacity).

The company is gradually adding another 660 megawatts to its capacity from the Porce III Hydroelectric Power Station, which has been operating since December 2010 and which already has two of its turbines in operation. In 2018, the company will also add the 2,400 megawatts that should be produced by the Ituango Power Station, as it has just been granted the contract to build, finance and operate the station for 50 years.

The first power station required an investment of $1.3 bn and is currently EPM's biggest generating system, contributing 5% of the country's energy. The second will cost $3.2 bn and the search for funding sources has only just begun.

EPM will invest $1.8 bn in these projects and others between 2011 and 2013, of which more than $1 bn will be invested in new power generation projects.

With this generation and investment capacity and the support of assets that come to over $100 bn (as of December 2010), EPM has been shopping in the region. A few years ago, it began to build the Bonyic hydroelectric power station in Panama (with national partners) and, until now, this had been the municipal company's only foreign investment.

More recently, in December 2010, it acquired 51% of Guatemalan company Genhidro (previously owned by the Spanish company, Iberdrola) and other electricity companies in that country for $605m. "This business," said the Director of EPM, Federico Restrepo, "will allow the company to achieve 66 per cent of the international 'mega'." In other words, the $1.2 bn in revenues from outside Colombia in 2015.

The numbers for this project were only just being defined when EPM announced to the market another of its acquisitions in Central America in March 2011: Electra Noreste of Panama and Distribuidora de Electricidad del Sur of El Salvador, for which it paid $200m.

"We're ready to face up to 2011, the year we consolidate EPM's growth through the integration of the Central American companies acquired and the confirmation of new energy and water business. I believe we will reach our 'mega' long before 2015," highlighted Restrep in March of this year in his management report, providing a hint that we must stay alert, because there are still deals to be closed.

The Director himself has said, "not everything that is profitable is sustainable, but everything that is sustainable must be profitable."

What does he mean? He is specifically referring to the company's Corporate Social Responsibility actions (essential in the global market) on which the company's profitable growth is based, as a company that should generate profits and remain over time by making "socially profitable" investments, in that they generate profits in order to promote social development in the city and region where the company operates.

The same recent report from the company highlighted that, in 2010, more than $221m were invested "to improve quality of life and encourage sustainable development in our region," without taking into account the $469m contributed to Medellín City Council, the company's sole owner, to fund investment in development and social welfare in the community.

There are two social responsibility programmes that are close to Federico Restrepo's heart. The first is 'Antioquia Iluminada', which aims to take power to rural homes throughout the Antioquia region that would never have had access otherwise. The goal of 42,000 homes between 2008 and 2011 was fulfilled and extended to 47,000 homes, with an additional investment of $88.5m, added to the $76m already invested in the programme.

The second is 'Energía Prepago', which re-establishes power for the poorest families who have been cut off due to accumulated unpaid bills. For this challenge, the goal of installing around 30,000 metres (for pre-paid card payments) in six years was set, but after just three years (until 2011), the scheme had already reached 100,000 homes.

The programme, as highlighted the Director, has an additional benefit to reconnection, which is that users who have a debt pay off the outstanding amount with every card purchase. That is, with every quota of power they buy, part of it is used to pay off the debt. This way, the company promotes the culture of only using the power that can be paid for among users with lower financial resources and avoids the continued growth of debts until they become impossible to pay off.

'Gas without Frontiers' (taking residential gas to several towns and villages), 'Equipping Homes' (connecting services to poor housing) and 'Social Funding' (loans for purchasing electrical appliances and building materials to improve homes) are other programmes run by EPM as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility programme, through which the company confirms the commitment made to the city, region and country of promoting sustainable growth.

With all this, it must be said that EPM is able to find strategic partners for specific investments at home or abroad. It can look for the funding sources it needs (it is recognised by the market and has the standing to do so) and can even consider other types of business partnerships. But what it will always know, as do the city's inhabitants, is that "the Jewel in the Crown is not for sale"