The billionaire who supports Javier Milei in Argentina – 09/21/2023 – Market

Argentina’s business elite is largely skeptical of Javier Milei, the libertarian favorite for October’s presidential elections, who has promised to “chainsaw” the state and dollarize the economy.

But as Milei wins over a slew of ordinary voters, a corporate titan is quietly rooting for him: Eduardo Eurnekian, 90, owner of the Corporación América conglomerate and the fourth richest person in Argentina.

The businessman, who made his fortune in the media and airports, was Milei’s boss from 2008 to 2021, and ended up taking him to the position of chief economist at his company. The two developed a personal relationship that analysts say has been a key influence on the anti-establishment candidate, although he rarely mentions this relationship.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Eurnekian confirmed his confidence in Milei — with an important caveat. “I think Milei would be a great president. But I don’t want the dollar,” he said.

Many investors have been uncomfortable with Milei’s main promise, to dollarize the economy to end Argentina’s chronic inflation. The country has few economic ties with the United States and has dangerously low foreign currency reserves.

Eurnekian called dollarization a “simplification” of Argentina’s problems.

“It seems ridiculous to me to adopt the dollar just because until now we have not been able to manage our currency,” he added. “After stabilizing the economy, why dollarize?”

Privately, other business leaders warn that Milei, a former television commentator, may not be fit to govern. He frequently explodes in anger when frustrated, has no national party structure, and adheres to an extreme “anarcho-capitalist” vision of transferring most state roles to the private sector.

Eurnekian disagrees with them. “Milei is fundamentally an economist, a technocrat,” he said. Aside from dollarization, Milei’s economic plans, which include balancing the budget in the first few months of his term, represent “nothing new when you look at it from an international perspective,” he added. “He’s the one I trust to be more pro-market.”

Several former Eurnekian employees are part of Milei’s high-ranking team, including his alleged picks for interior minister and chief of staff.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1932 to Armenian immigrants, Eurnekian started in his parents’ textile business and, in the early 1980s, began buying Argentine media outlets. He sold his media empire before founding an airport group in 1998.

The company, Corporación América Airports, was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018 and includes 53 airports. Corporación América also has energy, infrastructure, agribusiness and financial services divisions.

“El Armenio”, as Argentine media calls him, is also known for his philanthropy, including the construction in 2004 of a stone cemetery in the Falkland Islands for Argentine soldiers killed in the Falklands War. In 2020 he was awarded an Order of the British Empire for his services to Argentine-British relations.

Like other successful businesspeople in Argentina, analysts said that Eurnekian has the ability to interact with the government of the moment, including having maintained a lucrative concession for the Argentine airport network since the 1990s.

Opponents argue that Milei’s connection to the tycoon undermines his promise to fight against Argentina’s political class.

“Eurnekian is Milei’s intellectual father, and he is the archetype of the Argentine businessman who lives off privileges granted by the political class,” said José Luis Espert, a deputy on the Argentine economic right who briefly shared a political party with Milei between 2020 and 2021 .

Juan Luis González, a journalist who investigated the relationship for a biography of Milei titled “El Loco,” said members of Milei’s circle and Corporación América agreed that Eurnekian encouraged his employee to enter politics after he rose to prominence in the end. in the 2010s, as a TV and radio commentator critical of Argentina’s economic mismanagement.

Eurnekian said his support for Milei does not extend to financing her campaign.

González said Eurnekian’s role has been “more about social positioning and opening doors,” adding that the billionaire’s mentorship was personally important to Milei, who came from a lower middle class background and was estranged from her parents for many years. “He was the first important person who gave Milei any kind of recognition,” he said.

Eurnekian was sitting in the front row of a summit in Buenos Aires last month when Milei, the keynote speaker, tried to win over the executives in attendance. “I’m going to focus on getting the State off your neck… be free!” he roared, raising eyebrows and generating snickers.

There are parallels between Eurnekian and Milei. None of them come from the schools and social clubs that shape much of Argentina’s elite. Neither of them ever married. And both are frantic workers known for their irascible personalities. Former colleagues say that Eurnekian found Milei to be a fun presence within the company.

“He was a very good employee, very knowledgeable and skilled,” Eurnekian said. “He’s a very serious person. He’s very honest, and that’s important.”

However, Eurnekian disapproves of some of Milei’s behavior as a Libertad Avanza party candidate, including his repeated labeling of politicians from the populist Peronist government and the center-right opposition coalition as “murderers” due to their management of the economy. “They are not killers,” Eurnekian said.

Eurnekian, a follower of the Armenian Apostolic Church, also criticized Milei’s recent comments describing Pope Francis, a former archbishop of Buenos Aires who emphasizes social justice, as “representative of evil on earth.”

“Francisco is a man I completely respect and who has fought to bring peace to the world,” said the business leader.

Whoever wins the October elections will face a difficult task in stabilizing the Argentine economy. The government is struggling with mounting debt, the peso has lost more than half its value against the dollar in parallel markets this year and a complex set of capital controls has affected exports and foreign investment.

Eurnekian said the solution lies not in “someone reinventing everything” with “drastic changes” but rather in a shift to a more orthodox economic policy.

He said: “What I want most is the recovery of the currency, which will require recognizing what the value of your currency is on the international market — and then working, working, working.”