At 89 years old, he died Gregorio Pérez Companc. Faithful to his usual low profile, his delicate state of health had not been publicly revealed but sources linked to the family confirmed his death.
Pérez Companc was one of the most influential Argentine businessmen in the business world in the country. Owner of the fourth largest family fortune in Argentina, valued at USD 4.2 billion according to the ranking of Forbes magazine, which also placed him in position 782 of the richest men in the world, “Goyo” – as the man who knew how to be was nicknamed a central figure of establishment local – started in the oil business.
At the end of May of this year, it was announced that three of his 7 children bought the group’s main companies from their brothers for about USD 550 million. Luis Pérez Companc, current head of the business conglomerate, together with her sisters Rosario and Pilar, remained in control of Molinos Río de la Plata, Molinos Agro and the oil company Pecom. The sellers are three of her brothers.
Goyo was born on August 23, 1934 in Buenos Aires. According to the book “The owners of Argentina II” by Luis Majul, He was the biological son of Benito Bazán and Juana Emiliana Molina, a very humble couple, who decided to give him up for adoption when he was 11 years old.
His adoptive mother would be Margarita Companc de Pérez Acuñaand his father Ramon Perez Acuña. It was Margarita who incorporated the child into the family group, and she ensured that he was treated like another son.
Gregorio’s three stepbrothers undoubtedly incorporated him and the family clan prepared Goyo for a business destiny, both through his studies and in building his business career. The three would die without leaving descendants, first Jorge Joaquín who died in 1959, then Carlos in 1977, and finally Alicia in 1992. That left Gregorio as the undisputed leader.
Pérez Companc was actively involved in multiple businesses, although most of his assets were in food, telecommunications and energy companies. In his last years in full activity (he retired at the end of 2009) his flagship was Molinos Río de la Plata, a company whose shares he donated to his seven children so that they could take control (Catalina, Cecilia, Jorge, Luis, Pablo, Pilar and Rosario).
Of course, you have to go back several decades to have a complete overview of the business life of “Goyo”. The first thing to keep in mind is that the seed from which Pérez Companc’s fortune was born was planted 15 years before his birth, when his adoptive family founded San Benito, in 1919. The company was dedicated to raising sheep for wool marketing.
Years later, in 1946, the Perez Companc family bought two World War II barges from the United States, with which they created their own shipping company. They also entered the forestry business, when they acquired the San Jorge Forest Establishment, in Misiones, in 1956. Just two years later (1958) the family group gave life to the Perez Companc Oil Company, dedicated to the drilling and completion of oil wells. and gaseous.
It was at that point in history when the figure of Gregorio Perez Companc began to stand out on the national business scene.
With only a secondary degree obtained at La Salle School, and without having completed his university studies, “Goyo” began his career in 1966, first at YPF to move four years later to the family business, as Superintendent of Field Operations at the Neuquén area to later be promoted as Oil Operations Manager. It was the beginning of his long business career in which, after the death of his adoptive brother Carlos, he faced a process of expansion of family investments that would also experience crises, sales and resurgences.
By the time Goyo took his first steps in positions of high responsibility, back in the 1970s, the Pérez Companc family was already participating in the shipping industry – the group’s business of origin – and also in the forestry, agricultural and livestock industries. financial institution, as owner of Banco Río, today Santander.
As the years went by and with Gregorio at the head of the holding company, the group further diversified while focusing on different niches within the sectors in which it already operated. This is how one of the main food companies in Argentina, Molinos Río de la Plata, was born in 1999, for example, which marked the entry of the Perez Companc into that industry, after having acquired one of the most emblematic wineries in the country the previous year. , Grandson Senetiner.
But two years later, the crisis due to the collapse of convertibility would force Pérez Companc to make one of the most difficult decisions of his business life: sell the heart of the family group, the Pérez Companc oil company, dedicated to the drilling and completion of wells. oil and gas. The operation was completed in September 2002, at the hands of the Brazilian state-owned Petrobras, which disbursed more than USD 1.1 billion.
From that moment on, the group reconfigured and focused on farming and food production, although later, with their heirs in charge of the daily management of the businesses, the Pérez Compancs would return to the oil business.
In 1988, Gregorio was awarded the Konex Platinum Award, as well as a Diploma of Merit. In his biography, the foundation compiled each of his companies, including Servicios Especiales San Antonio, Petroquimica Cuyo, Minera Sierra Grande, Somargen, Petrosur, Banco Río de la Plata, La Patagonia Compañía de Seguros and PeCom Agropecuaria. . He participated in different mining, hydroelectric, petrochemical, telecommunications, and transportation and storage projects in the country and the rest of Latin America.
Two decades later, on December 17, 2009, Goyo sent a statement to the Stock Exchange announcing his retirement from business, which he transferred to his children Jorge, Luis, Pablo, Rosario, Pilar, Cecilia and Catalina through a reorganization of its companies under the umbrella of a new company created in Delaware, United States, under the name Santa Margarita.
The name chosen for the new parent company was marked by a personal tragedy. The eldest of their daughters, Margarita, died in 1984 at the age of 19 in a car accident in Patagonia. She was the first-born of the seven siblings who were born from the union of Gregorio with María del Carmen “Munchi” Sundblad Beccar Varela. Cultivator of a markedly low profile during his years of activity, little or nothing was heard about him after his retirement from the business world.
But his passion for cars and also for the countryside was known. After his retirement he dedicated himself to Goyaike, the agricultural society dedicated to raising Hereford cows as well as sheep for wool production, the distant origin of his ancestors’ businesses in Patagonia at the beginning of the last century.
For his part, led by his son Luis, also a motorsports fan, the group continued to grow constantly. Following the repurchase of the assets of the former SADE, the Perez Companc Group returned to the Oil&Gas sector as a provider of exploration and production services. The following year, Molinos Agro would also be created, a branch of the food industry to provide raw materials and, at the same time, become a leader in grain exports.
Gregorio Pérez Companc He will also be remembered for his philanthropic activity carried out through the foundation that bears his name, particularly focused on education and health. At the end of the 1990s, he donated between 50 and 80 million dollars for the Pilar University Campus of the Universidad Austral and his business school, the IAE, a donation that included a complex university medical clinic, the Austral Hospital. His company also contributed to turning the Argentine Catholic University into one of the main educational centers for undergraduate courses.
Together with his wife, María del Carmen “Munchi” Sundblad Beccar Vareladevised the formation of the Temaiken Foundation, a non-profit entity that manages the first biopark in Latin America, in which the first location of the Munchi’s Ice Cream chain was also inaugurated, the business to which he dedicated his woman since the early 2000s.
In addition to his wife, the heirs of the empire are the businessman’s seven children: Rosario, Jorge, Luis, Pilar, Cecilia, Catalina and Pablo, the youngest. The businessman’s eldest daughter, Margarita, died at the age of 19 in a car accident in Patagonia.
Luis was in charge of the flagship. The former rally driver, at 51 years old, serves as president of Molinos Río de la Plata.
Jorge, for his part, shares with his children the management of La Gloriosa, an agricultural firm with more than 15,000 hectares in the southwest of the province of Buenos Aires; Pilar also runs an agricultural business through Haras San Benito, in San Antonio de Areco.
Meanwhile, Pablo stands out for his passion for cars, with a long career as a racing driver in different categories and an outstanding career as a collector.
Catalina Perez Companc of Kahle and Cecilia Perez Companc of Etchart have assets distributed between Argentina and Uruguay.
On the occasion of a lifetime achievement award given for his career in November 2022, which Gregorio could not attend because his health was already very weakened, it was his son Luis’ turn to refer to him.
“He is my reference, who helps me every day and who has taught me a lot in all these years. This award is a recognition of all the work he has done throughout his life,” said Molinos’ number one.
“My uncles founded the company and then my father followed and it is up to the next generation to be ahead of the group. And that is what he has always transmitted to us, being a family company and also the importance of the people who make up the group,” he concluded.
