Ruben Celaya He has been doing business with Argentina for thirty years. Always in the fishing industry. Family business Arbumasa was sold to Chinese group Dalian Huafeng in 2017, leaving him CEO of ACE Marítima Austral, one of that company’s subsidiaries. He knows this country like few Spaniards and has an advice for anyone considering investing there: “You can do business in Argentina as long as the market is Argentina. Never export, it would be a kamikaze.” celaya -Husband of the former minister of the government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Cristina Garmendia– sums up: “How can you survive in a place where costs are increasing day by day due to inflation and the constant depreciation of the local currency?”
What should be done in a country once again approaching collapse? Spain’s presence in Argentina increased exponentially with the privatizations carried out by the Argentine Government in the nineties. Carlos Menem. These were times of miracles and growth, thanks to the maintenance of a system that artificially maintained the parity between the dollar and the peso until it exploded. At that time, Argentina was one of the most expensive countries in the world. At that time, the price of a coffee was three dollars.
Crisis at the turn of the century (corralito, martial law, end of parity, further suspension of payments and transition to Kirchnerist movement) Flight of many international companies and expropriationsLike Repsol’s subsidiary YPF, which is still pending in court. Several companies have decided to go ahead, from banks to Indra to insurance company Mapfre.
Among them is Prosegur, a family company of Argentinian origin that will not give up. They confirm their work there: “Eventually you adapt to the situation. You know, behind devaluation comes inflation, cost and price increases.” Controlled by the Revoredo-Gut family, 15% of the company’s business comes from the southern country and its main source of income is its foreign exchange transportation division. Future? “It is absolutely unpredictable. If the Peronist candidate Sergio Massa (Minister of Economy) wins the presidential elections, there may be gradual devaluations, and if he wins Javier Milei (libertarian candidate), there could be one hard devaluation. The dollarization he demands is impossible. “It will require $45 billion in unprintable cash.”
Santander continues to be Argentina’s fourth bank with assets of 11 billion 500 million euros at July’s exchange rate, while BBVA (8 billion 616 million) ranks sixth. In both cases and across all banking parameters, Business in Argentina represents less than 5% from both groups. In the first half of the year, 2.5 percent of BBVA’s profits came from Argentina and 4.8 percent of Santander’s profits came from Argentina. Mapfre has been in this country for 40 years, has 200 million bonuses and 400 employees. “Hyperinflation determines our strategy here,” says the insurer.
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