Billionaire Jaime Gilinski jolts Colombian business with brace of bids

Billionaire Jaime Gilinski jolts Colombian business with brace of bids

Generations of Colombian children learned their animals by collecting pictures of exotic beasts given away in the wrappers of the local Jet chocolate bars. Now the firm which makes the iconic national sweet may itself fall prey to a passing lion.

A $3.4bn brace of hostile all-cash bids from one of the country’s biggest business beasts, banking billionaire Jaime Gilinski, have jolted Colombia’s slumbering bourse into action.

The shockwaves have reverberated beyond Colombia, raising questions about corporate activism which are common in the US but rare in Latin America, where family-controlled conglomerates often rule the roost.

A Harvard Business School graduate, Gilinski, 64, began his career as an mergers and acquisitions banker at Morgan Stanley before building an empire of financial and property assets worth nearly $4bn. His assets include a stake in Metro Bank in the UK, as well as a big real estate development in Panama and Banco GNB Sudameris, which operates in Colombia, Peru and Paraguay.

Gilinski’s launched a $2.2bn hostile offer last month for up to 62.6 per cent of Nutresa, Colombia’s biggest food group and maker of the Jet chocolate. Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group joined him as a minority partner to add financial muscle. The offer is at a