La Anonima

S.A. Importadora y Exportadora de la Patagonia, doing business as La Anónima, is an Argentine chain of supermarkets that operates mainly in the region of Patagonia.

La Anonima
Public (S.A.)
Traded asBCBA: PATA
IndustryRetail
FoundedTrelew, Chubut, 1908[1]
HeadquartersItuzaingó, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Key people
Federico Braun (CEO)[2]
Revenue US$0.96 billion (2018)[3]
US$16.47 million (2018)[3]
US$-3.21 million (2018)[3]
Total assets US$267.18 million (2018)[3]
Number of employees
11,500
Websitelaanonima.com

Formats consist of mostly mid-size supermarkets, as well as some hypermarkets that are usually anchors for shopping malls. Stores carry both standard brand names and private label brands, such as La Anonima and Best. The company also operates two major meat packing plants,[4] and some of its products are exported to other countries.[5][6] Today, La Anonima has 162 branches in 83 cities across Argentina and its workforce consists of 11,500 employees,[1] making it, as of 2015, the fifth-biggest supermarket chain in the country by sales.[7][4]

History
Jose Menendez

At the end of the 19th century, Jose Menendez was a powerful landowner, colonizer, banker, industrialist and owner of a shipping company. His company's main trading post was set up in Punta Arenas, Chile, while also maintaining numerous establishments in Argentine territory.[1]

In 1908, Menendez, Mauricio Braun and Gastón Blanchard merged their respective companies and founded the Sociedad Anonima Importadora y Exportadora de la Patagonia (Import and Export Company of Patagonia), initially based in Punta Arenas, passing into Argentine jurisdiction in 1910.[8]

By 1911 it was operating several stores in a warehouse format, while also having a naval fleet as well as regular passenger and cargo transportation lines between Buenos Aires and Punta Arenas,[9] with stopovers in several Argentine Patagonia ports, through the use of two ships made to order in Britain: the Argentine and the Asturian.[10]

Mr. Menendez died in Buenos Aires in 1918, never having lost his Spanish nationality. At the time, the president of La Anónima was his son-in-law, Mauricio Braun (of German and Prussian descent),[11] who remained in this position until 1932, when he was replaced by Carlos Menéndez Behety. By 1929 it had 25 branches in different locations within southern Argentina, in addition to 4 ships.[1]

The Braun Menendez conglomerate worked in different areas, monopolizing much of the wool trade, meat packing industry and banking sector of Patagonia. Both families were part of the Argentine Rural Society and together owned the Exploitation Company of Tierra del Fuego, having 430,000 hectares with 1,250,000 sheep that produced 5 million kilos of wool, as well as leather and meat.[8]

The company spearheaded economic development in the region, becoming involved in industries as diverse as electricity generation and transmission, telephony, and transportation of people and goods. This process was not without conflict, though. Like other large trading companies in the Americas at the time (such as HBC in Canada), the company purchased lands from the government that were previously inhabited by natives such as the Selk'nam, Yámana, Qawasqar and Alacalufes. The process of conquering these lands in Argentina was called Conquest of the Desert.[1]

La Anonima, in the early 1920s
Sheep husbandry in Argentine Patagonia, late 19th century

Due to how long and complex the company name was, inhabitants of Patagonia simply called it "La Anónima" (literally, The Anonymous), and the name stuck.[12] Between 1929 and 1968 La Anónima published the magazine La Argentina Austral, and also participated in the inauguration of the first radio programs in Comodoro Rivadavia and Río Gallegos. In 1942, the company opened its capital to public offering, trading in the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange since then.[6]

In 1957, La Anónima and other partners created the airline Austral Líneas Aéreas, which eventually became the second-largest commercial airline in the country after Aerolíneas Argentinas. The name Austral reflects the Patagonian identity of its owners.[9]

In 1967 the company started selling off various assets, including ships, warehouses and numerous buildings. During the same year, several warehouses were converted to the supermarket format, the Trelew location being the first, and this transition was completed in 1971.

In the early 1980s, the stock package was again concentrated in the Braun family, who assumed the current leadership of the company and launched a new strategy aimed at gaining leadership in the retail industry of the Patagonia region through a policy of growth, adopting new technologies and establishing a new corporate identity. The company is known for being an early adopter of innovative retail technology such as barcodes, in the 1980s.[8]

Present
La Anonima in Comodoro Rivadavia

In 1991, the company opened a small chain of stores in a convenience store format under the Best name.[13] This chain was sold in 2010 to French retailer Carrefour (which also operates its flagship banner in Argentina), although the Best name was retained as La Anonima's budget tier private label brand. Carrefour would later convert these stores into the Carrefour Express banner.[14]

In 2000, La Anonima signed an agreement with French retailer Groupe Casino to sell Leader Price private label brand items in all of its locations. The Leader Price range covered an assortment of items, from food to clothing and was produced by suppliers from Argentina, Uruguay and France.[15] At that time Casino was operating in Argentina a chain of hard discount stores also named Leader Price, but unrelated to La Anonima, that sold only Leader Price-branded items.[16]

During Argentina's 2001 economic crisis, the company registered a severe drop in its turnover for the first time in its history.[15] After consumer confidence was restored in the country in 2003, the company went through several years of uninterrupted growth in terms of revenue and profits.[17]

In 2005 the company acquired from the Williner family a local supermarket chain, Quijote, that operated in a small area in Santa Fe.[11] Eventually, the Quijote brand was phased out and the remaining stores were reopened under the La Anonima banner.[18]

La Anonima in Villa La Angostura

In recent years the company has invested heavily in its meat processing and packing plants, as well as getting complete control of the Pampa Natural plant in 2017, after having partial ownership for several years. The output of the company's meat plants makes it the fifth-largest meat exporter within Argentina, supplying 2,400 tones of beef for the country's share in the Hilton Quota.[19]

In 2009, the company launched its own credit card line, under a partnership with Tarjetas del Mar S.A. (a company which later it acquired), offering customers a no-interest line of credit for appliance purchases, among other benefits.[20]

In 2017, the company became widely known in the country for several relatives of the Braun family that became part of the cabinet of the Macri administration. The involvement of family members in politics was not well received within the company, especially after the poor economic results of the new government, which resulted in the company's worst quarter since 2002.[21][22]

Its current president is Federico Braun, son of Oscar Braun, the tenth son of Mauricio Braun, and cousin of the mother of Marcos Peña, former chief of cabinet of the Argentine government.[1]

Locations
  • Buenos Aires:
    • 9 de Julio
    • Ameghino
    • América
    • Arrecifes
    • Azul
    • Bragado
    • Carlos Casares
    • Carmen de Patagones
    • Chacabuco
    • Chivilcoy
    • Colón
    • General Villegas
    • Junín
    • Lincoln
    • Pehuajó
    • Salto
    • Trenque Lauquen
    • Mercedes
    • Ituzaingó
  • Río Negro:
    • Allen
    • Bariloche
    • Catriel
    • Cinco Saltos
    • Cipolletti
    • Choele Choel
    • El Bolsón
    • General Roca
    • Las Grutas
    • Río Colorado
    • San Antonio Oeste
    • Sierra Grande
    • Viedma
    • Villa Regina
  • Tierra del Fuego:
    • Río Grande
    • Tolhuin
    • Ushuaia
  • Chubut:
    • Comodoro Rivadavia
    • Esquel
    • Gaiman
    • Playa Unión
    • Puerto Madryn
    • Rada Tilly
    • Rawson
    • Sarmiento
    • Trelew
    • Trevelin
  • La Pampa:
    • Eduardo Castex
    • General Pico
    • Intendente Alvear
    • Santa Rosa
  • Santa Cruz:
    • Puerto Santa Cruz
    • San Julián
    • Las Heras
    • Caleta Olivia
    • El Calafate
    • Pico Truncado
    • Puerto Deseado
    • Río Gallegos
    • Río Turbio
    • 28 de Noviembre
    • Piedra Buena
    • Gobernador Gregores
    • Perito Moreno
  • Córdoba:
    • Laboulaye
    • Marcos Juárez
    • Morteros
  • Neuquén:
    • Junín de los Andes
    • Neuquén
    • Plaza Huincul
    • Rincón de los Sauces
    • San Martín de los Andes
    • Villa La Angostura
    • Zapala
    • Plottier
  • Santa Fe:
    • Esperanza
    • Rafaela
    • Rufino
    • San Jorge
    • Venado Tuerto
    • San Justo
  • La Anonima in Bariloche
  • La Anonima in Rio Gallegos
  • La Anonima in San Martin de los Andes
  • La Anonima in Puerto Madryn
  • La Anonima in Gaiman
  • La Anonima in Neuquen
  • La Anonima in Trelew
  • La Anonima in San Martin de los Andes
  • Store number 38 in Ushuaia, together with Paseo del Fuego Shopping Center
gollark: Unfortunately, it is not the default on Windows.
gollark: Like a correct person, I just use full-disk encryption on Linux.
gollark: If you have physical access to *my* things you can't read any data off, although an "evil maid attack" where you swap out the unencrypted boot stuff for versions which log the password is possible.
gollark: Phones and maybe recent MacOS devices have full-disk encryption, so not really.
gollark: (Yes, this is from a wikihow article, but the steps it suggests do not work for this case probably)

References
  1. Gil, Soledad (12 September 2018). "La Anónima, la saga patagónica de la familia Braun Menéndez". La Nación (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2019. English translation
  2. Insight Meat Processing Volume 6 (PDF). Marel Meat. p. 4.
  3. "La Anónima - Memoria y Balance. Ejercicio 110/2017-2018" (PDF). www.laanonima.com.ar (in Spanish). p. 50. Archived from the original on 6 September 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2019. English translation
  4. "La Anónima chooses ULMA Packaging for the vacuum packing of meat with the Flow-vac® system". ULMA Packaging.
  5. Manzoni, Carlos (18 May 2018). "Federico Braun, de La Anónima: 'Los supermercados la están pasando mal'". www.lanacion.com.ar (in Spanish). La Nacion. Retrieved 23 February 2019. English translation
  6. Tomas, Juan Pedro. "Not so anonymous: La Anonima, big in Argentina's rural areas, is on the move. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
  7. "Leyendo datos: ¿quién crees que factura más en Argentina: Carrefour o WalMart? (¿Y Libertad?)". infonegocios.info (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 February 2019. English translation
  8. Barreiro, Ramiro (1 February 2016). "El súper del fin del mundo". El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 February 2019. English translation
  9. Alfonso, Javier (26 June 2011). "Quijote y La Anónima, historias de progreso, con semejanzas". Diario La Opinión (in Spanish). English translation
  10. "Jose Menendez y La Anonima - Historia y Arqueologia Marítima". www.histarmar.com.ar (in Spanish). English translation
  11. Morando, Héctor Pérez. "101 años de La Anónima, de ramos generales a supermercado". Diario Rio Negro (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 February 2019. translation Google translation
  12. "La Anónima". www.cace.org.ar (in Spanish). Retrieved 23 February 2019. English translation
  13. "La Anónima celebró sus 100 años". Diario Rio Negro (in Spanish). 11 June 2008. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  14. "Carrefour se quedaría con Best, los minimercados de La Anónima" (in Spanish). iProfesional. 4 May 2010. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  15. Rebossio, Alejandro (10 July 2001). "La Anónima abrió sus mercados de descuento". www.lanacion.com.ar (in Spanish). La Nacion. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  16. Sainz, Alfredo (12 March 2010). "Eki cierra la compra de Leader Price y crea un nuevo formato". www.lanacion.com.ar (in Spanish). La Nacion. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  17. "La Anónima ganó 16 millones en el último semestre". Diario Río Negro (in Spanish). 17 February 2005. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  18. "La Anónima que borró al Quijote del mercado". puntobiz.com.ar (in Spanish). Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  19. Nesich, Eric. "Análisis fundamental: Importadora y Exportadora de la Patagonia". El Ojo Digital (in Spanish). Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  20. "La Anónima lanzó su tarjeta de crédito". www1.rionegro.com.ar (in Spanish). Diario Rio Negro. 3 December 2009. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  21. "Federico Braun, dueño de La Anónima: 'El último trimestre es el peor desde el 2002 y el próximo va a ser seguramente peor'". Infobae (in Spanish). 29 June 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2019. English translation
  22. "El súper La Anónima dice que lo atacan por razones electorales". www.clarin.com (in Spanish). Clarin. 28 June 2017. English translation
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