Gustavo Cisneros, Felipe González’s friend who bought Galeras Preciados: “It was a classic case: cleanup and sale”

2023-12-30 20:01:47

Updated Saturday, December 30, 2023 – 21:14

He died last Friday in New York at the age of 78. In the 80s he carried out the purchase and sale of the legendary department stores that brought him almost 30,000 million pesetas in profit.

Gustavo Cisneros (on the right of the image), along with former president Gonzlez and his ex-wife and former deputy, Carmen Romero. EFEEconoma Gustavo Cisneros, the Venezuelan businessman who took a hit of more than 28,000 million pesetas after the expropriation of Rumasa

“I am an optimistic person who works“, the incomparable Venezuelan businessman Gustavo Cisneros, one of the most influential and richest characters in his country and Latin America, defined himself. His death in New York, at the age of 78, brought almost everyone to agreement. Revolutionary government and opponents launched in Caracas to highlight his immense business work, leaving in the background the dark clouds that surround his television channel and main banner, Venevision.

After the truce signed with Hugo Chvez after the failed coup d’état of 2002 and the constant threats of Chavismo, Venevisin has been content to obediently follow the slogans launched from the Bolivarian power until becoming informatively inconsequentialalthough at the head of local entertainment, with its famous Latin American soap operas breaking one record after another on the continent.

Even Miss Venezuela wore the best clothes of the Cisneros family, who arrived from Cuba to Venezuela last century. From their host country they built a small empire of global dimensions, the Cisneros Group.

Describing Cisneros’s business successes would take an entire master’s degree in Economics. For months he has even had his own documentary: Gustavo Cisneros, without a break, which can be streamed on Prime. An hour and 35 minutes under the motto inherited from his father (“the reward for good work is more work”) seems like little time to unravel some of the most daring business operations of recent decades, analyzed down to the smallest detail. detail by experts and followers. One of the big hits of him is checking how he was able to make Pepsi Cola the most drunk brand in Venezuela to, at a stroke, transform itself into Coca Cola in a few hours to regain the throne of soft drinks.

The purchase of Galeras Preciados in Spain deserves a separate chapter, in the heat of his friendship with Felipe Gonzlez and with the Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez, the same one that Chvez tried to overthrow and assassinate during his coup d’état in 1992. Those were the times of Jos Mara Ruiz Mateos and its confrontation with the socialist cabinet, which ended with the expropriation of Rumasa in 1983 and its sale in parts. One of them was Galeras Preciados, bought and sold years later by Cisneros in an operation with which he earned 28,000 million pesetas.

“Galeras was a classic case: purchase, restructuring and sale of the company. “It’s what we know how to do,” Cisneros himself explained to EL MUNDO. His friendship with González facilitated this “commitment to Spain, which was emerging from Franco’s rule and was still experiencing moments of unrest.” [el golpe de Estado de Tejero fracas dos aos antes de la expropiacin]. I believed in Spanish democracy and its free market. I liked the company and there I exported the management that I had, experienced in working the largest supermarket chain in Venezuela. [los famosos CADA de entonces]”.

That was precisely one of Gustavo Cisneros’ great specialties, buying and optimizing profits to sell later and earn good money. The Venezuelan tycoon participated in a thousand operations while he extended their political and influence networks throughout the world. He became the largest shareholder of Univision, the large Latin American network in the US, along with production companies, Internet channels, breweries, supermarkets, museums, a formidable collection of contemporary Latin American art and even a baseball team, the Lions of Caracas, which In local ball it is equivalent to Real Madrid, of which he was also a fan in football. The Cisneros organization has been leading the Caracas team for two decades.

“What do you owe to Venezuela?” Cisneros is asked at the end of his documentary. Without a doubt, a great debt, and not only for him as such an influential character. “I owe you a rational, democratic and intelligent path“answered someone who always defined himself as a democratic center.