Investment multi-implanted: land, trade and finance in the southern Patagonia

Abstract

This work will analyze the conformation and the development of a family business, Sociedad Anónima Exportadora e Importadora de la Patagonia - better known as "La Anónima" -, one of the most important supermarket firms in the country today. Founded in 1908 by capital installed in the city port of Punta Arenas, in the Chilean sector of the strait of Magallanes, "La Anónima" based its economic growth strategy in a clear expansion of its activities in the southern area of the continent, and was nationalized for various reasons as an Argentine company in 1918. Its evident economic policy of simultaneous investments widely diversified, both in occupation of land for livestock production and in the creation of commercial establishments in the major towns of Patagonia - today extended to several points in the country-, as well as in the operation of the first sheep refrigerators, and their trading and financial activities, make an example -perhaps of larger scale and without doubt the most successful- of this type of family business behavior in the South of the country.