Who are the heirs of Carlos Pedro Blaquier who remain at the head of the Ledesma company

This Monday, after being hospitalized for about a month, the businessman died Carlos Pedro Blaquier who since 1970 and for more than four decades led the agro-industrial group Ledesma, the main producer of sugar and paper in the country.

The management of the company is now in the hands of four of his five children: Carlos Herminio –current president of Ledesma–, Alejandro, Santiago and Ignacio Blaquier Arrieta All members of the company’s board of directors. and his grandson Juan Ignacio Pereyra Iraola, son of María Elena, his only daughter. According to Forbes magazine’s latest ranking – dating from 2020 – Carlos Pedro Blaquier and his family rank 24th among the 50 richest families in Argentina, with $490 million.

During this time, the management of the company is in charge of Javier Goni who had held the position of CEO since March 2017. Former manager of Alpargatas, on his arrival at Blaquier he replaced Javier Crotto.

With the death of Carlos Blaquier Sr., at the age of 95, there will be no change in the company. Ten years ago, the businessman was not involved in the management or on the board of directors of the company. In 2013, he left the presidency of the company to his son Carlos Herminio Blaquier and since then his heirs have continued to run the family business.

The businessman was married to Nelly Arrieta Wollmann, then heiress of the Ledesma company, with whom she had her five children: Carlos Herminio, María Elena, Alejandro, Santiago and Ignacio. On February 2, 1970, Carlos Pedro replaced his stepfather, Herminio Arrietato the management of Jujuy, where for 18 years he held executive positions.

“At the time, Ledesma was a flourishing and promising company, but it was during his tenure that he managed to become the leading company in northern Argentina and one of the most important in the country”, the company pointed out.

Blaquier has always highlighted the work of his predecessors. “The difficulty is to make the base solid; I didn’t do that, Enrique Wollmann and Arrieta did. I built on good foundations; If it hadn’t had a good foundation, everything would have collapsed,” he said during the company’s centenary celebrations in 2008.

The management of Carlos Pedro Blaquier has stood out for three emblematic aspects: the growth of production, the complete diversification of the company and the commitment to the community. During his time as president of the company, Ledesma doubled its production of sugar, quadrupled that of paper and increased that of alcohol from 21.2 million to 70 million litres, of which 60 million are used to make alcohol. ethanol.

In addition to scale growth, Blaquier made progress in integration as well as limited diversification into businesses that had synergies with traditional businesses, including:

– The agricultural sector, which is currently carried out in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Entre Ríos.

– The citrus activity, which has enabled Ledesma to become the main producer and exporter of oranges in the country.

– The production of fructose syrups and other products derived from the wet milling of corn in the province of San Luis. In 2020, Ledesma sold the business to Cargill.

– The manufacture of notebooks and school supplies, in the province of San Luis, which has enabled Ledesma to dominate the notebook market in Argentina.

– Energy production. This integration took shape in 1994 with the entry of Ledesma into the Aguaragüe gas production consortium. In addition, the production of bioethanol from sugar cane has allowed Ledesma to participate in the biofuels market since 2010.

“In 1970, Blaquier opened another chapter. To meet the demand for fructose, which soft drink factories decided to use instead of sugar, it opened a corn wet milling plant in San Luis (Glucovil). He set up a factory there to produce paper for the graphic and school industries, and advanced into the agricultural world with four ranches,” he explained. Fernando Rochi professor of history at the University Torcuato Di Tella in a note published in 2008.

“The diversification of activities has enabled us to adapt to the volatility of trades: sometimes subsidized sugar paper, other times subsidized sugar paper. The same happened with the financial conservatism that led to expansion through the reinvestment of profits and not external credits, which was a strategy against the vicissitudes of the exchange rate in the country,” he said. he adds.

In his management, Blaquier advanced the gradual modification of the leadership model that characterized Ledesma throughout a century: the personal leadership of the president resulted in a collegial management of the board of directors. This allowed for an orderly and proper transition to a new generation at the helm of the company.