Eduardo Eurnekian (born 4 December 1932) is an Argentine

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

businessman of Armenian descent. , he is the fifth richest person in Argentina, with an estimated net worth of US$1.4 billion.

Early life

Eduardo Eurnekian was born to Armenian immigrant parents on 4 December 1932. His family established a textile manufacturer which prospered with the

Argentine economy The economy of Argentina is the second-largest national economy in South America, behind Brazil. Argentina is a developing country with a highly literate population, an export-oriented agricultural sector, and a diversified industrial base. Ar ...

and became an important supplier to international sporting apparel firm Puma; but which, like many Argentine textile makers, nearly collapsed after Economy Minister

José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz (13 August 1925 – 16 March 2013) was an Argentine lawyer, businessman and economist. He was Minister of Economy under Jorge Rafael Videla's administration between 1976 and 1981, and shaped economic policy at th ...

's round of

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econo ...

and deregulatory policies exposed the real value of the business, in 1981.

Career

The Eurnekian family reportedly borrowed heavily from the former Argentine small business lender, BANADE, and in 1988, Eduardo Eurnekian purchased "Cablevisión S.A," then a failing local

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...

station. His investment became increasingly lucrative following Economy Minister

Domingo Cavallo Domingo Felipe Cavallo (born July 21, 1946) is an Argentine economist and politician. Between 1991 and 1996 he was Economic Ministry of Argentina during Carlos Menem presidency. He is known for implementing the ''Convertibility plan'', which es ...

's implementation of the

Convertibility Plan The Convertibility plan was a plan by the Argentine Currency Board that pegged the Argentine peso to the U.S. dollar between 1991 and 2002 in an attempt to eliminate hyperinflation and stimulate economic growth. While it initially met with cons ...

in 1991, which brought financial and price stability to Argentina during the 1990s. In 1994 he sold a 51% stake in Cablevision S.A. (by then Argentina's second-largest cable operator), to

Tele-Communications Inc. Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone. The company was started in 1958 in Bozeman, Montana as Western Microwave, Inc. and Co ...

for US$350 million and in 1997, netted US$320 million by selling most of his remaining shares to local investment giant CEI Citicorp Holdings SA. Eurnekian also held controlling interest in "América TV", four radio stations and a Buenos Aires financial daily, ''

El Cronista ''El Cronista'' (''Spanish: The Reporter'') is a daily business newspaper published in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was founded by Martin Giménez Antonio and first published as ''El Cronista Comercial'' on November 1, 1908. In 1989 the name wa ...

''. " Aeropuertos Argentina 2000," a consortium led by Eurnekian won a 30-year concession in 1998 to run 33 of the Argentina's main airports. He also bought the

Howard Johnson's Howard Johnson's, or Howard Johnson by Wyndham, is an American hotel chain and former restaurant chain. Founded by Howard Deering Johnson in 1925 as a restaurant, it was the largest restaurant chain in the U.S. throughout the 1960s and 1970s, ...

master franchise in Argentina from

Cendant Cendant Corporation was an American provider of business and consumer services, primarily within the real estate and travel industries. In 2005 and 2006, it broke up and spun off or sold its constituent businesses. Although it was based in New Yo ...

, and invested in a regional airline company, LAPA.

Investments in Armenia

On 17 December 2001, Eurnekian's Corporación América signed a 30-year concession agreement with the

Armenian government The politics of Armenia take place in the framework of the parliamentary representative democratic republic of Armenia, whereby the President of Armenia is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Armenia the head of government, and of a mul ...

for the management of operations of

Zvartnots International Airport Zvartnots International Airport ( hy, Զվարթնոց միջազգային օդանավակայան, translit=Zvart'nots' mijazgayin ōdanavakayan) is located near Zvartnots, west of Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. It acts as the main ...

, which is Armenia's largest airport. The company launched the construction of a new

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...

which brought the airport into conformity with international standards. The total cost of the project was more than $50 million. Eurnekian unveiled plans to invest millions of dollars into Armenia's agribusiness sector as he set up a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

with a local firm. Senior executives from ''Tierras de Armenia'', a

Yerevan Yerevan ( , , hy, Երևան , sometimes spelled Erevan) is the capital and largest city of Armenia and one of the world's List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities. Situated along the Hrazdan River, Y ...

-based company belonging to Eurnekian, and the Max Group (owned by Harutiun Pambukian, a parliamentarian close to former President

Robert Kocharian Robert Sedraki Kocharyan ( hy, Ռոբերտ Սեդրակի Քոչարյան ; born 31 August 1954) is an Armenian politician. He served as the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic from 1994 to 1997 and Prime Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh from ...

), reported a US$25 million joint venture to develop 60 km² (24 mi²) of arid land in the southern Armavir region into fruit orchards and a fruit processing plant. Eurnekian has built an almost $1 billion media empire since the early 1990s and is now the majority owner of a consortium operating 76 airports worldwide, mostly across Argentina and elsewhere in South America as well as in Armenia. He also owns 2,000 square kilometres of land and food processing factories in northern Argentina.

Awards

He has been awarded as the "Business Man of the year" in 1995. In 1999 he received in Italy the "Leonardo Award", given to the foreign businessman of the year. He also received the highest awards in Armenia for his activities. In 2012 he was awarded the Oslo Business for Peace Award in Oslo, Norway. In December 2020, he was appointed as Honorary Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

(OBE), for services to UK/Argentina relations.

Personal life

Eurnekian is single, and his "chosen successor" is his nephew Martin Eurnekian.

References