Eduardo Eurnekian is a prominent entrepreneur in Argentina owning in its entirety a conglomerate of various businesses known as Corporación América Internacional S.A. including control of the single largest operator of airports worldwide in terms of number of concessions held. Son of Armenian immigrants in Argentina, he inherited from his family a vertically integrated operation containing cotton plantations and several textile mills in Argentina having been one of the biggest suppliers of cotton fabric to the German sporting apparel multinational known as PUMA SE. Moreover, divesting the business in the early 1980s, he spent the proceeds in acquisitions of several small Cable TV operators with presence throughout the entire Greater Buenos Aires area. Efficiently integrating these acquisitions, he proceeded with a careful implemented business plan injecting capital to upgrade technology as well as territorial expansion including investments in advertising in order to win over paying subscribers eager to enhance their options watching Paid TV channels from inside the republic and abroad. The end result of this strategy was the consolidation of the biggest Cable TV operator in Latin America known as Cablevisión S.A. then in the 1980s and 1990s before selling control of it to American investors including Cable TV pioneer John Malone. Accordingly, he ended up selling his entire shareholding in the privately-held company with more than a million paying subscribers then in three transactions over the course of three years in the mid to late 1990s receiving $ 750 million overall in return and placing him right there on the map in terms of tycoons having sizable fortunes appearing in business publications such as Forbes. From that point in time, Eduardo Eurnekian decided to diversify by means of investing his war chest in other industries with better growth prospects primarily in Argentina but without ignoring his Armenian roots.
As a result, Eduardo Eurnekian owns today a huge conglomerate comprising business activities in both Argentina and Armenia. In fact, in Argentina these business activities include an agricultural concern, a cattle ranch, a biodiesel plant, upstream oil operations, home building, toll road concessions, fabrication of high-resolution semiconductors employing nanotechnology, the airport concession operation and a civil engineering contractor specializing in highways, roads, bridges, tunnels, railway tracks, airport terminals and runways. In Armenia, on the other hand, the conglomerate operates a civil engineering contractor doing the same things its sister company does in Argentina, the national postal service concession, the logistical operation of the nation’s biggest commercial bank and the airport concession business. The last is the flagship entity of the conglomerate known as Corporación América Airports S.A. presently being the industry leader in terms of number of airports under management. Likewise, although the IPO was undersubscribed, the entity went public last year raising $ 485 million on the NYSE while trading there under the ticker symbol (CAAP). Furthermore, having a total of 52 concessions throughout several countries in South America, Italy and Armenia, the company holds the rights to handle all airport traffic in both Argentina and Armenia while projected to close the year firmly with $ 2 billion of total revenue. Altogether, the conglomerate makes over $ 3 billion a year in consolidated sales now while employing a diverse workforce of some 20,000 nationals of various countries.
To conclude, the privately-held conglomerate Mr. Eurnekian built has undertaken feasibility studies to extract petroleum in the rich on-shore Vaca Muerta oil field without success in Argentina. Nevertheless, the group is building a railroad system and tunnel crossing the Andes while connecting the Atlantic Ocean in Buenos Aires with the Pacific Ocean in Valparaíso, Chile expected to carry cargoes of up to 24 million tons annually. In fact, the aggressive project known as “Bioceánico Aconcagua” is expected to be completed in 2022 and it will revolutionize freight transportation throughout the whole Southern Cone subregion of Latin America. In addition, the group retains bright Argentine economist Javier Milei as a strategic advisor on a full-time basis while also constructing the single largest and self-sufficient residential master-planned development the city of Córdoba, Argentina’s second biggest city, has ever seen known as “Distrito Las Artes”. Consequently, these accomplishments demonstrate that Eduardo Eurnekian is a very talented Armenian-Argentine businessman who never rests pursuing high caliber projects expected to come to fruition while increasing his net worth in the not distant future. The king of airport concessions will retain his status as a prominent billionaire holding widespread business activities in Argentina and Armenia.