Foto: Presidencia de la República

Sebastián Piñera no es un hombre de desistir fácilmente. Como él mismo lo cuenta, es un heterodoxo, adicto al trabajo y asume riesgos. Fue muy exitoso como hombre de negocios, y motivó muchas controversias. Desde que asumió la presidencia de Chile en marzo de 2010, se ha comportado  igualmente de manera atípica. No es por casualidad que se lo ha comparado con el multimillonario ex primer ministro italiano Silvio Berlusconi.

En la segunda mitad de su presidencia, Piñera ha sido castigado en las encuestas de opinión. En cierto momento de 2011, su tasa de aprobación se hundió a un porcentaje tan bajo como el 22 por ciento, lo cual lo convirtió en el presidente más impopular desde que Chile retornó a la democracia en 1990.

Y sin embargo, ha seguido obstinadamente con su programa de reformas y puede señalar algunos éxitos significativos. La economía chilena creció a un ritmo de 6 por ciento el año pasado y ha continuado haciéndolo en 2012, a pesar de una perspectiva global de deterioro. El desempleo está en 6,5 por ciento, su nivel más bajo en más de 10 años, y la inversión extranjera directa alcanzó un máximo histórico de US$12.000 millones en el primer semestre del año, un notable aumento de 80 por ciento respecto de un año antes.

En muchos sentidos, no es una sorpresa que Piñera haya terminado en la política: nació en una familia de políticos. Su padre, embajador chileno ante las Naciones Unidas, fue uno de los fundadores del Partido Demócrata Cristiano que ahora, irónicamente, se opone a su gobierno.

Pero a pesar de sus antecedentes, en su juventud Piñera se sintió atraído por los negocios antes que por la política. En 1971 se graduó en Ingeniería Comercial en la prestigiosa Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, antes de asistir a la Universidad de Harvard, donde obtuvo un doctorado en Economía.

Aunque estudió en Harvard, fue la filosofía del libre mercado de la Escuela de Chicago la que captó su atención. Al volver a Chile en 1976, después de una breve estancia como economista en las Naciones Unidas, se dedicó a construir su fortuna.

Empezó en Infinco, un proveedor de servicios financieros, antes de convertirse en gerente general del Banco de Talca, un banco regional, en 1979. Ese mismo año fundó Bancard, una compañía pionera que contribuyó a llevar las tarjetas de crédito a Chile.

En 1982, Piñera enfrentó su primer escándalo, cuando fue acusado de prácticas bancarias fraudulentas. Se emitió una orden judicial para su arresto pero luego fue sobreseído por la Corte Suprema de Chile.

Como le ha sucedido a menudo, Piñera se recuperó. En 1985, Bancard se asoció con MasterCard convirtiéndose en una de las mayores compañías de tarjetas de crédito del país.

A comienzos de la década de 1990, Piñera compró sus primeras acciones en la aerolínea nacional chilena LAN Chile y consolidó su amistad con la poderosa familia Cueto que controlaba la compañía. Cuando asumió la presidencia del país, poseía una cuota de 26,3 por ciento en LAN,  participación evaluada en US$1.500 millones. En marzo de 2012, la revista Forbes estimó su fortuna total en US$2.400 millones, lo que lo convierte en la cuarta persona más rica de Chile y la número 521 en el mundo.

La participación en LAN ha sido tan controvertida como el hecho de que anteriormente estuviera involucrado en el Banco de Talca. En 2007,  el regulador de la bolsa de valores de Chile multó a Piñera con una suma de casi US$700.000 por comprar acciones de la aerolínea mientras poseía información privilegiada. Él proclamó su inocencia y dijo que la decisión obedecía a motivos políticos, pero pagó la multa de todos modos.

Después de asumir la presidencia vendió toda su participación en LAN para evitar un conflicto de intereses. También vendió su cuota de 100 por ciento en Chilevisión, una emisora nacional de TV, a Time Warner, así como una serie de otras participaciones menores.

La inversión que deseaba mantener era su cuota de 12,5 por ciento en Blanco y Negro, una compañía que controla el club de fútbol más exitoso de Chile, el Colo Colo. El fútbol, sostuvo Piñera, era un asunto del corazón, no de la cabeza. Pero en diciembre de 2010 cedió a las presiones y también vendió esa parte.

No sorprende que Piñera haya hecho del enfoque empresarial la piedra angular de su gobierno, y haya dado los pasos necesarios para reducir el déficit. Según el Banco Mundial, Chile ahora se clasifica en el puesto 39º entre 183 países en función de la facilidad para hacer negocios, dos niveles más arriba que el año pasado. Cuando se trata de iniciar un negocio, Chile ocupa el puesto 27º, una notable mejoría en comparación con 2011 cuando se ubicaba en el 62º.

El gobierno de Piñera ha implementado el innovador programa “Start-Up Chile”, que ofrece a los empresarios independientes un capital inicial de  US$40.000, sin ninguna restricción, para desarrollar sus proyectos. El programa está abierto tanto a extranjeros como a chilenos, e incluye una visa de trabajo por un año.

Piñera está obligado a dejar la presidencia en marzo de 2014. En Chile, un presidente en funciones no puede presentarse como candidato para un segundo período consecutivo.

A los 62 años y con cuatro hijos, ha dicho poco acerca de lo que hará a continuación. Pero podemos estar seguros de que será algo llamativo, y probablemente le valga amigos y enemigos en la misma medida.

foto: Helen Hughes

Juan Benavides ha tenido éxito en los negocios a pesar de –o tal vez a causa de– una niñez marcada por la tragedia y el sacrificio. El quinto de nueve hermanos, perdió a su madre en un accidente automovilístico cuando solo tenía 10 años de edad. Su padre, que fue legislador en el congreso chileno a fines de la década de 1950, quedó gravemente herido en aquella ocasión, pero se recuperó y pudo criar a sus hijos solo.

“Desde muy temprano nos dio un discurso del cumplimiento del deber y de la responsabilidad”, recuerda  Benavides. “Para él, la forma de avanzar en la vida era trabajar. Era un ejemplo de un hombre muy fuerte. A pesar de las adversidades, jamás lo oí quejarse de nada”.

Benavides dice que crecer junto a tantos hermanos y hermanas le enseñó lecciones que le sirvieron en los negocios: el trabajo en equipo, el compromiso y cómo enfrentar los reveses. Consideró la posibilidad de seguir el camino de su padre dedicándose a la política, pero en cierto momento decidió no hacerlo. Hoy, a los 54 años, dice que la política no está en sus planes.

En cambio, se forjó una carrera en finanzas. Trabajó en el Banco Sudamericano, ahora Scotiabank, antes de pasar a la compañía agrícola chilena Anagra, que entonces atravesaba dificultades económicas. Benavides logró cambiar la suerte de la empresa.

“Esa experiencia me enseñó dos cosas”, cuenta. “Uno, aprender a trabajar con pocos recursos  y, en segundo lugar, el valor de la innovación”.

Pero fue en su siguiente trabajo, a la cabeza de CMR Chile a fines de la década de 1990, donde se hizo un nombre. CMR es la tarjeta de crédito de Falabella, el minorista de tiendas de departamentos,  y aunque la tarjeta existía desde 1980, su atractivo era limitado. Los clientes solo podían usarla en las tiendas Falabella. Benavides amplió su cobertura, permitiendo a los usuarios comprar también en otros negocios.

“Tuvimos un crecimiento extraordinario. Ni yo ni nadie sospechamos a dónde íbamos a llegar. Fue mucho más allá de lo que esperábamos”, afirma. En los 17 años transcurridos desde que ese proceso se inició, el valor de la cartera crediticia de CMR se disparó de US$100 millones a US$5.200 millones.

Durante su período en CMR, Benavides también supervisó el lanzamiento del banco minorista propio de Falabella, así como las divisiones de seguros y viajes –Banco Falabella, Viajes Falabella y Falabella Seguros–, antes de ser nombrado CEO de la compañía en 2004.

Bajo su dirección, Falabella se ha fortalecido aún más expandiéndose en los cuatro países en los que opera: Argentina, Chile, Colombia y Perú. Cuando él asumió el cargo, Falabella tenía 121 tiendas en estos cuatro países. Para fines del año pasado, la cifra había subido a 259, con planes de alcanzar las 457 tiendas a fin de 2015. Las ventas aumentaron de US$4.300 millones en 2004 a US$11.000 millones el año pasado, en tanto el EBITDA se disparó de US$510 millones a US$1.600 millones.

Al finalizar 2011, Falabella poseía 79 tiendas por departamentos y 116 locales Sodimac de equipamiento y mejoras para el hogar en sus cuatro países. También es dueña de 64 supermercados en Chile y Perú, y 14 centros comerciales en esos dos países.

Chile representa la parte del león del ingreso: 67 por ciento. Perú aporta 20 por ciento, Argentina 7 por ciento y Colombia 6 por ciento. Las tiendas por departamentos representaron  US$3.700 millones del ingreso del año pasado, las de mejoras para el hogar US$4.200 millones y los supermercados US$1.400 millones, en tanto el resto proviene de la división financiera.

El siguiente paso obvio sería expandirse en los dos mayores mercados minoristas de la región, Brasil y México, y Benavides reconoce que le gustaría hacer precisamente eso si surge la oportunidad.

“Son países difíciles y la apuesta es grande desde el inicio, dados los actores que ya están presentes en el mercado”, señala. “Por lo tanto pensamos que lo más efectivo es siempre entrar con alguna adquisición o alguna alianza conveniente”.

También opina que hay mucho espacio para la expansión en los cuatro mercados actuales de Falabella, cuya población en conjunto suma más de 130 millones de habitantes. Los cuatro países tienen clases medias emergentes con un creciente poder adquisitivo.

“Esta empresa se caracteriza por ser muy innovadora”, responde a una pregunta sobre las fortalezas de Falabella. “De hecho, aquí hay un dicho que está muy presente en la cultura, la piel de la empresa, y es ‘lo que fue bueno hasta ayer ya no lo es hoy’. La innovación está permanentemente presente en todo lo que hacemos todos los días”.

Para el futuro, Benavides cree que el gran desafío será aprovechar el incesante crecimiento de las compras por Internet, que actualmente representan solo una fracción de las ventas de la compañía, pero que seguramente crecerán.

“Debemos servir al mismo cliente online y físico. Online, el desafío es cómo llegar al consumidor en la forma más tangible posible: cuando uno ve una polera o una camisa en el computador, en nuestro sitio web, que uno realmente pueda sentir cómo es”.

“Por el otro lado, en el físico, en el retail del bricks and mortar, es generarle al consumidor una experiencia tal que sea muy atractivo ir a nuestra tienda por ser ésta un lugar de entretenimiento, donde se puede encontrar algo sorprendente, algo nuevo, y que no sea sólo un lugar de compras”.

Más de 120 años después que el inmigrante italiano Salvatore Falabella fundó su primera sastrería en Santiago, la compañía iniciada entonces tiene un futuro brillante.

“Pero estos desafíos no son algo sobre lo que uno pueda rumiar demasiado tiempo”, advierte Benavides. “Si lo haces, te superarán antes de que te des cuenta”.

Photo: Helen Hughes

Juan Benavides has succeeded in business despite, or perhaps because of, a childhood marked by tragedy and sacrifice.

The fifth of nine siblings, he lost his mother in a car crash when he was just 10 years old. His father, a Chilean congressman in the 1950s, was seriously injured but recovered to raise his children alone.

“He sat us all down and taught us about duty and responsibility,” Benavides recalls. “For him, the way to get on in life was hard work. He was a very strong man. Despite the hardships he suffered I never once heard him complain.”

Benavides says that growing up with so many brothers and sisters taught him lessons that have served him well in business: teamwork, compromise and dealing with setbacks. He considered following his father into politics at one point but decided against it. Today, at age 54, he says politics are not in his plans.

Instead, he forged a career in finance. He worked at Banco Sudamericano, now Scotiabank, before moving to the struggling Chilean agro-company Anagra and transforming its fortunes. “That experience taught me two things,” he says. “How to work with limited resources and the importance of innovation.”

But it was in his next job, as head of CMR Chile in the late 1990s, that he made his name. CMR is the credit card of Falabella, the Chilean department store retailer, and although the card had existed since 1980, its appeal was limited. Customers could use it only in Falabella stores. Benavides opened it up, allowing clients to use it in other stores too.

“We enjoyed extraordinary growth. It was beyond what we could have hoped for,” he says. In the 17 years since that process began, the value of CMR’s loan book has soared from $100 million to $5.2 billion.

During his time at CMR, Benavides also oversaw the launch of Falabella’s own retail bank, as well as insurance and travel divisions –Banco Falabella, Viajes Falabella and Falabella Seguros– before being appointed as company CEO in 2004.

Under his guidance, Falabella has gone from strength to strength, expanding in all four countries where it operates– Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru. When he took over, Falabella owned 121 stores in these four countries. By the end of last year it had 259, with plans to reach 457 by the end of 2015. Sales have risen from $4.3 billion in 2004 to $11 billion last year while EBITDA has climbed from $510 million to $1.6 billion.

At the end of 2011, Falabella owned 79 department stores and 116 Sodimac home improvement stores in its four countries. It also owns 64 supermarkets in Chile and Peru, and 14 shopping malls in those two countries.

Chile accounts for the lion’s share of revenue– 67 percent. Peru brings in 20 percent, Argentina 7 percent and Colombia 6 percent. Department stores accounted for $3.7 billion of last year’s revenue, home improvement stores for $4.2 billion and supermarkets for $1.4 billion, with the rest coming from the financial division.

The obvious next step would be to expand into the two biggest retail markets in the region, Brazil and Mexico, and Benavides acknowledges that he’d like to do just that if the opportunity arises.

“But they are difficult countries and it would be a big gamble, because of the strength of the companies that are already there,” he says. “We wouldn’t be able start from zero and rely on organic growth so we think the right way to do it would be through a sensible takeover or a joint venture.”

He also says there is plenty of room for expansion in Falabella’s four existing markets, which have a combined population of over 130 million. All four countries have emerging middle classes with more and more spending power.

“This company is very innovative,” he says, when asked about Falabella’s strengths. “There’s a motto that’s deeply ingrained in the culture of the company and that is: ‘What was good yesterday is no good today.’ Innovation is part of everything we do, every day of the week.”

Looking ahead, Benavides says the big challenge will be to take advantage of the relentless growth of online shopping, which currently accounts for only a fraction of company sales, but is sure to rise.

“We have to serve the customer both online and in the flesh,” he says.

“Online, we have to reach the customer in the most tangible ways possible, so that when they see a sweater or a shirt on our website they can really feel what it’s like. And in our stores, we need to give the customer entertainment, something surprising, something new– not just a place to shop.”

More than 120 years after Italian immigrant Salvatore Falabella founded his first tailor’s shop in Santiago, the company he started has a bright future.

“But these challenges are not something you can mull over for too long,” Benavides warns. “If you do, you’ll be overtaken before you know it.”

photo: Presidencia de la República

Sebastian Pinera is not a man who gives up easily. By his own account, he’s a maverick, a risk-taker and a workaholic.

He was staggeringly successful as a businessman, and highly controversial. And since assuming the Chilean presidency in March, 2010, he’s been just as colorful.

Not for nothing has he been compared to Italy’s billionaire former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Now in the second half of his presidency, Pinera has been battered in the opinion polls. At one point in 2011 his approval rating slumped to as low as 22 percent, making him the most unpopular president since Chile returned to democracy in 1990.

And yet he has doggedly pushed forward with his reform program and can point to some significant successes.

The Chilean economy grew at 6 percent last year and has continued to do so in 2012, despite a deteriorating global outlook. Unemployment stands at 6.5 percent, its lowest level in over a decade, and foreign direct investment hit an all-time high of $12 billion in the first half of the year– a remarkable 80 percent increase from a year earlier.

In many ways it’s no surprise that Pinera has ended up in politics: he was born into a political family. His father, a Chilean ambassador to the United Nations, was a founder of the Christian Democrat party that now, ironically, opposes Pinera’s government.

But despite his background, the young Pinera was drawn to business before politics. In 1971, he graduated with a business degree from Santiago’s prestigious Pontifical Catholic University before going to Harvard, where he earned a Ph.D. in Economics.

Although he studied at Harvard, it was the free-market philosophy of the Chicago School of Economics that captured his imagination. When he returned to Chile in 1976, after a brief spell as an economist at the United Nations, he set about making his fortune.

He started at Infinco, a financial services provider, before becoming general manager at Banco de Talca, a regional bank, in 1979. In that same year he founded Bancard, a pioneering company that helped bring credit cards to Chile.

In 1982 Pinera faced his first scandal, when he was accused of fraudulent banking practices. An order was issued for his arrest but then was cleared by Chile’s Supreme Court.

As so often is the case, Pinera bounced back. In 1985, Bancard teamed up with MasterCard to become one of the biggest credit card companies in the country.

In the early 1990s, Pinera bought his first shares in Chile’s national airline LAN Chile and cemented his friendship with the powerful Cueto family that controls the airline. He later became a company director.

By the time he assumed the Chilean presidency, he owned a 26.3 percent stake in LAN, a holding valued of $1.5 billion. In March 2012, Forbes estimated his total fortune at $2.4 billion, making him the fourth richest person in Chile and 521st in the world.

That stake in LAN has been just as controversial as his earlier involvement in Banco de Talca. In 2007, Chile’s stock exchange regulator fined Pinera nearly $700,000 for buying shares in the airline while in possession of privileged information. He proclaimed his innocence and said the decision was politically motivated, but paid the fine anyway.

After assuming the presidency he sold his entire stake in LAN to avoid a conflict of interest. He also sold his 100 percent holding in Chilevision, a national television broadcaster, to Time Warner, as well as a series of other smaller shareholdings.

The one investment he wanted to keep was his 12.5 percent stake in Blanco y Negro, a company that controls Chile’s most successful football club, Colo Colo. Football, Pinera argued, was an affair of the heart, not the head. But in December 2010 he gave in to pressure and sold that too.

Unsurprisingly, Pinera has made entrepreneurialism a cornerstone of his government, and has taken steps to cut red tape.           According to the World Bank, Chile now ranks 39th out of 183 countries in terms of ease of doing business, two places higher than last year. When it comes to starting a business, Chile ranks 27th – a dramatic improvement from 2011 when it placed 62nd.

The Pinera government has implemented the innovative “Start-Up Chile” program, which offers entrepreneurs $40,000 in seed capital, with no strings attached, to develop their projects. The program is open to fo-reigners as well as Chileans, and comes with a one-year work visa.

Pinera will be forced to relinquish the presidency in March 2014. In Chile, an incumbent president cannot stand for a se-cond consecutive term.

The 62-year-old father of four has said little about what he might do next. But, rest assured, it is likely to be eye-catching, and will probably make him friends and enemies in equal measure.

Courtesty of the Chilean Government

Laurence Golborne
Popular public face of Chile’s mining rescue

SANTIAGO — The rescue of the 33 miners in Chile’s Atacama Desert last year catapulted Laurence Golborne from relative obscurity to worldwide renown. As mining minister, he was the public face of the remarkable operation. He spent days at the San José mine, comforting the miners’ families during their ordeal and relaying information to them about their relatives below ground.
With his easy-going manner, fluent English and film-star looks, he became a media celebrity. Before the accident, one poll showed that Golborne was the least-known member of the Chilean cabinet: Only 16 percent of the people knew who he was. By the time the miners had been hauled from the ground three months later, that figure had jumped to 87 percent.
The months since then have been difficult for the Chilean government, but Golborne’s approval rating has remained high. A poll published in August, for example, showed that Chileans regard him as the most important figure in the ruling coalition, aside from President Sebastian Piñera himself. Golborne’s approval rating is 71 percent, way above that of anyone else in government.
As a result, many observers view Golborne as a potential presidential candidate for elections due in late 2013. But he insists he is not interested. “I have never in my life suggested that I could be or have the intention of being president of the Republic, or of putting myself forward as a candidate,” he tells Latin Trade in an interview. “I came into the government of President Piñera to cooperate, to build a good government and to add my grain of sand in service to my country. But I’m not aiming for more than that.”
Asked if he might change his mind nearer the election, Golborne says: “Life takes many turns, and you can’t be sure of anything, but I have no aspirations to be president, and that’s the truth.”
Unlike most of his fellow cabinet members, Golborne comes from a humble, middle-class family. The youngest of six siblings, he grew up in the Santiago suburb of Maipú, the son of an iron-monger. In the 1970s, he experienced firsthand the political strife that ripped Chile apart and culminated in the 1973 coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Golborne’s sister was a Communist who had to hastily burn her Marxist literature after the coup, and his brother was a right-wing extremist with ties to the paramilitary group Patria y Libertad (Fatherland and Freedom).
Golborne considers himself lucky to have come from such a discordant background. “It teaches you how to live with different points of view. I think that as a result I have a very well-developed sense of tolerance. I’m open to different ideas,” he says.
After studying civil engineering at Santiago’s prestigious Pontifical Catholic University, Golborne moved to the United States, where he studied business administration at Northwestern and Stanford universities. He returned to Chile and forged a successful career in the private sector, most notably between 2001 and 2009 at retail conglomerate Cencosud, where he rose to the post of CEO. During his reign, the group expanded into Argentina, Brazil, Peru and Colombia. On the basis of that business acumen, Golborne was given the job of mining minister when Piñera named his first cabinet in March 2010.
In January this year, Golborne’s brief was expanded to include the energy ministry, in recognition of his successful handling of the miners’ rescue. Then, in July, he was moved to the Ministry of Public Works as part of a cabinet reshuffle.
When Golborne talks about his time at the mining ministry, he tends to play down the San José saga, even though it captured the world’s imagination. He likes to highlight his other achievements.
“It was a very fruitful year,” he recalls. “We brought in new legislation to increase mining royalties, a move that generated a lot of extra income for the country. We passed a law on closing disused mines in a bid to protect the environment. We dealt with the complex situation at the San José mine, but, more than that, we changed everything to do with mine safety.”
Golborne was the architect of a draft law on mine safety that is currently before the Chilean congress. The government describes it as “the biggest legislative step forward in the mining sector in 30 years.”
The minister says the number of inspectors at Chilean mines has doubled since the San José accident, and the number of fatalities has halved, although he accepts that there still is work to do. But now his focus is on public works and on overseeing reconstruction following the massive earthquake that hit Chile in February 2010. It is the sort of job that should suit him down to the ground.
“The mining ministry is tremendously important for the country, but it’s very small in terms of the direct impact it has on people’s lives,” Golborne says. “The ministry of public works, in contrast, has a huge impact on people’s lives, through the construction of roads and the provision of drinking water in rural areas, for example.”
When he is not at work, Golborne, 50, spends as much time as he can with his six children, the fruit of two marriages. He also plays guitar, although he says he finds little time to practice these days.

editorial@latintrade.com