Businessman Gregorio Pérez Companc died this Friday at the age of 89. Considered one of the most prominent businessmen in the country, his health had not been publicly disclosed, but sources linked to his family confirmed his death.
Owner of the fourth largest family fortune in Argentina, valued at USD 4.2 billion according to Forbes magazine ranking –which also placed him in position 767 of the richest men in the world– Pérez Companc started in the oil business.
“Goyo” – as he was nicknamed – owned, along with his family, one of the most powerful groups in the country and He was in charge of companies such as Molinos Río de la Plata and PeCom energetica. Born on August 23, 1934 in the province of Buenos Aires, he was adopted. 11 years old by Margarita Companc de Pérez Acuña and Ramón Pérez Acuña, who had three other children.
He began his career in the business world in 1943 with his adoptive brother Carlos Pérez Companc. Together they founded their first company, the shipping company of the same name, and he was also the owner of Banco Río de la Plata and SADE SA.
He announced his retirement from business in 2009 and gave control of the holding company to his seven children. At the end of May of this year, it was announced that three of them bought the group’s main companies from their brothers for about USD 550 million. Luis Perez Companc, current head of the business conglomerate, together with his sisters Rosario and Pilar, took control of Molinos Río de la Plata, Molinos Agro and the oil company Pecom. The sellers were his brothers Jorge, Cecilia and Catalina.
Molinos, one of the groups dedicated to the food business, owns companies such as Granja del Sol, Exquisita, Lucchetti, Matarazzo, Preferido, Vitina, Cocinero, Lira, Blancaflor, Nobleza Gaucha, Favorita, Don Vicente, Don Felipe, Chocoarroz, Nieto Senetiner, RucaMalen, Minerva, Gallo, Terrabusi (pastas), Arlistán and La Salteña.
Perez Companc was actively involved in multiple businesses, although most of his assets were in food, telecommunications and energy companies. 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.
