The newspaper The Colombian, of Medellín, whose most important shareholder is Manuel Santiago Mejía, of the GEA, published an article this Sunday regarding the trip of the seven members and leaders of the Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (GEA) to Abu Dhabi.
The newspaper assures that the visit might have been “a strategy to avoid the hostile takeover of Gilinski” and that the GEA would be willing to sell the Nutresa food conglomerate to the Arabs.
This would be a way to maintain castling. “In a direct negotiation with the Arabs, eventually the GEA might handle castling in a different way, and thus avoid that with a ‘master move’ on the stock market —like the one Gilinski has attempted— they would be left with the more than 100 companies in the called Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño”, says The Colombian.
The problem in this version published by the newspaper is that the GEA acts as a group and those who made the trip would be the decision makers. This would be illegal, as they have repeatedly denied the existence of joint control. In fact, the Financial Superintendency investigates these facts. It must be remembered that Jaime Gilinski has, directly or indirectly, more than 46% of the GEA.
This week, La W reported on the secret trip to Abu Dhabi by Ana Cristina Arango (independent member of the board of directors of Grupo Argos); Luis Javier Zuluaga Palacio (resigned from the board of Sura, shareholder and supplier of Nutresa); Pablo Londoño (he resigned from the Sura board and his family is a shareholder); Jaime Palacio (Chairman of the Nutresa board, shareholder and supplier); Jorge Mario Velásquez (CEO of Grupo Argos); Carlos Ignacio Gallego (CEO of Grupo Nutresa); and Ricardo Jaramillo (CFO of Grupo Sura).
The Financial Superintendence required Grupo Argos, Grupo Nutresa and Grupo Sura to issue relevant facts explaining the visit.
* Gabriel Gilinski is a shareholder of SEMANA Publications
