CHANGES in relationships can be hard to take. The economic bond between Latin America and Spain, its biggest former colonial power, is shifting as the region’s economies mature. Despite some ruffled feathers, the evolution is positive.

After two decades in which Spain amassed assets worth €145 billion ($200 billion) in Latin America, last year was the first in which Latin American companies spent more on acquiring their Spanish counterparts than the other way around (see left-hand chart). Dealogic, a data provider, says Mexican firms were the biggest investors, putting money into Avanza, a bus company, and (with a Chinese firm) Campofrío, a meat processor.

Mexican investors have also bought stakes in Banco Popular and Sabadell, two Spanish banks. Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, has a variety of business ties with La Caixa, a Catalan savings bank. Banesco, a Venezuelan bank, recently bought NCG, a Galician bank, for €1 billion. A Colombian financier has pledged to invest in a Spanish property firm called, in a nice twist, Colonial.

Linguistic and cultural affinities attract Latin American investors. Enrique Alberola of the Bank of Spain, the central bank, sees parallels with Spain’s own modernisation path. Spanish firms such as Telefónica, a phone company, and Santander, a bank, cut their teeth in Latin America. Between 1993 and 2000 almost half of Spanish foreign investment went there. These firms then used their scale and experience to make big investments across Europe. Likewise, Latin America’s multilatinas have been investing regionally for years. Now they are looking to broaden their horizons via Spain.

The amounts flowing from Latin America to Spain are still small; most of the investment on both sides is by big firms. But, in a new departure, Latin American development banks have begun extending credit to Spanish firms. Enrique de la Madrid, head of Bancomext, Mexico’s export-development bank, says that in 2013 the bank had outstanding loans of more than 3 billion pesos ($225m) to Spanish companies invested in Mexico, and 4.5 billion pesos to Mexican firms operating in Spain. For both sides, travelling across the Atlantic is a “good diversification strategy,” says Mr De la Madrid. “The Spanish have been doing it since the Conquest.”

Such language is a reminder of the relationship’s historical baggage. Sensitivities can spill into the open. Witness the dispute between a Spanish-led consortium contracted to expand the Panama Canal and the Panama Canal Authority (PCA). The consortium, headed by Spain’s Sacyr with Italian, Belgian and Panamanian partners, has threatened to stop work on the $5.25 billion project unless the PCA pays for big cost overruns (a deadline to settle the impasse came and went this week). “How do you think we Panamanians feel?” thundered the PCA’s boss, Jorge Quijano, in an interview with El País, a Spanish newspaper. “They still think we wear feathered headdresses.” The dispute has raised questions about some Spanish firms’ ability to handle big contracts.