SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chilean business magnate Julio Ponce will leave several of his companies, he said in a statement on Thursday, while the firms announced a broader restructuring that seeks to merge units into fewer entities.
They include firms that hold significant stakes in Chilean lithium producer SQM. Ponce said he was passing on control to his family, notably his daughter Francisca Ponce, who would be advised by his brother Eugenio Ponce.
“I have decided to announce that I will no longer be a protagonist in this story,” said Ponce, 79, the former son-in-law of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Separately on Thursday, his companies announced plans to simplify their organization by merging into fewer companies in filings to the South American nation’s stock exchange.
Pampa Group, as the collection of Ponce’s sprawling corporate empire is known, is one of SQM’s top shareholders alongside China’s Tianqi. Both hold just over a fifth of shares each, according to the country’s market regulator.
“I bequeath the control and direction, in both professional and patrimonial spheres, of what is coming to my family,” Ponce said.
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero and Daina Beth Solomon; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Kylie Madry)
Comments