About Andrónico Luksic

Andrónico Luksic, a Chilean entrepreneur who built one of Latin America’s biggest business empires, was born in 1926 in Antofagasta, Chile.  His father Policarpo migrated to Chile from the Croatian island of Brac in 1910 and married Elena Abaroa.  Mr. Luksic’s close relationship with his parents and affinity to his roots in Brac were major influences throughout his life.

After studying Law in Santiago, Mr. Luksic traveled to Paris to study Economics at the Sorbonne – where he stayed only briefly before deciding to work in a money exchange.  He returned to Chile with $30,000 of savings and went into business in spare parts for the cars sold by his uncle, who owned a Ford dealership in Antofagasta.

An amateur geologist, Mr. Luksic bought a controlling share of a small copper mine in 1952.  After two years, he sold the mine to a Japanese company for US$500,000 – an enormous amount at the time.  A combination of audacity, hard work and luck, to which he attributed many of his achievements, brought Mr. Luksic his first business success.

In 1954, Mr. Luksic founded the Luksic Group, through which he continued to develop his interests in the mining industry.  In the 1960s, the Group diversified into other industries, including fishing, coal mining, metal processing, electricity supply, manufacturing, food processing and forestry.  During this period, the Group gained control of many companies including the Lota Schwager coal-mines and Madeco, the major copper wire and tube manufacturer in Chile.

The advent of the Unidad Popular Government of President Allende in 1970 marked the beginning of a period of expansion outside Chile, particularly in Argentina, where the Group acquired Ford distributorships, a brewery and several agricultural estates.  The Group later opened a Ford dealership and iron-ore mine in Brazil and a packaging company in Colombia.

Mr. Luksic first came to international attention in 1980 when he took control of the British mining company Antofagasta (Chile) and Bolivia Railway Company, which had been listed in the London stock exchange since 1888.  He renamed it Antofagasta Plc.

Mr. Luksic increased Antofagasta’s investments in mining, acquiring the very large Pelambres copper mine in the Andes near the Argentine border; in food with Empresas Lucchetti S.A., a pasta maker; in banking with the Banco de Chile; and in brewing with CCU, the principal producer of beer in Chile.  In 1996, the non-mining interests were merged into another Luksic master company, Quinenco, leaving Antofagasta as one of the world's leading copper producers.

In Croatia, Mr. Luksic was a force in advancing the country’s tourism industry, and persuaded Chile to be among the first countries to recognize Croatian independence in 1991.

A man of famously few words and modest personal style, Mr. Luksic’s tremendous success attested to his ability to turn his unique vision into reality.  The charitable initiatives of Mr. Luksic and his family continue to support a range of causes, including the provision of educational scholarships in Latin America and Croatia.