MIAMI/HAVANA - Hugo Cancio believes he's the new face of American-style entrepreneurship in Cuba.
The Cuban-born Miami resident made his mark in music, promoting Cuban and other Latino acts. His company's stock is public and a handful of investors say they're betting on him.
Cancio, 50, also publishes magazines in Havana. Telecom companies are partnering with him. U.S. cable networks, private equity funds and law firms ask for Cancio's take on the thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba announced by President Barack Obama in December.
He even got to hang out recently with American TV comedian and talk show host Conan O'Brien, who was in Havana taping an upcoming show.
Antonio Zamora, a Miami lawyer aiming to do business in Cuba, said Cancio "is way ahead of the game" in terms of Havana connections.
But there are risks. His company, Fuego Enterprises Inc may trade through over-the-counter pink sheets, but it hasn't reported results for six years. The last time: in early 2009 it reported a loss and sharply declining revenues.
He's also been in and out with the Cuban authorities and had a legal scrum with the music company founded by the Beatles.
"Hugo is the best Cuba play we have and also the most speculative," said Cancio's largest investor, Thomas Herzfeld, the Miami Beach founder of the Herzfeld Caribbean Basin Fund, a Cuba-focused mutual fund. "It's not one I could recommend. The financials aren't there. But it is one I want to own."
That some investors are willing to bet on Cancio, despite past problems reflects how few American businessmen have lines into Cuba government entities.
Cancio's credibility with the Cubans, associates said, stems in part from his outspoken opposition to the U.S. embargo imposed since 1962, as well as his deep Cuban roots.
Cancio's level of access to Cuba is impressive for an American, his advocates said, in Havana and Cuba's diplomatic missions in Washington and New York.
"He stuck his head neck out in Miami and that's why Cubans respect him," said Ralph Patino, 57, a Cuban-American lawyer and Obama fund-raiser.
Cuba does not typically comment on business ventures in its country, but officials privately acknowledged that Cancio enjoys a high level of trust.
Cancio was born into the music business. His father, Miguel, was founder of Los Zafiros, a popular 1960s group in Cuba, though it's American-influenced Doo-wop sound was censored.
Cancio was expelled from school for telling a joke about Fidel Castro. His single mother, fearing that young Hugo's future wasn't rosy as a result, fled to Miami with the family in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, an exodus of 120,000 people.
In Miami he worked in a car dealership as a high school student to help the family. In the early 1990s he heard Cuba was opening up to exile family visits and launched a travel business.
He finally made his first trip back to Havana in 1994. There, he met Fidel Castro at a function for exiles. Cancio used the opportunity to, among other things, to get in the music business, producing a movie about his father's band.
Passionate about his homeland, Cancio has had a rocky relationship with the Cuban government and other exiles in Miami. In the 90s', as he emerged as an important figure in the Cuban-American community, Cancio was a advocate for ending the U.S. embargo against Cuba and was accused of being a communist as a result.
But Cancio was hard to pigeon-hole. In 2003, he was banned from Cuba for a year after denouncing a crackdown on political dissidents.
Cancio stayed away for five years. During that time, he formed Fuego in an attempt to cash in on a U.S. boom in Hispanic music.
His business struggled. The last time Fuego officially reported financial results it disclosed that in the nine months ended February 2009, its revenues were just $17,477, down 93 percent from the year-earlier period. It lost $113,917.
In the previous year that ended May 2008, the company's auditor, Moore & Associates, said there was "substantial doubt" about Fuego's ability to survive.
The year before there had been a similar comment from auditor, Braverman International.
Fuego said in the 2008 annual filing that it had a deficit in working capital, it was delinquent filing tax returns and was past due on the majority of its accounts payable.
Cancio said Fuego was a young company hit hard by the recession. "We switched gears and decided to move away from the music business and focus instead on quietly positioning ourselves in Cuba," he said.