How Iris Fontbona manages to run the biggest company in Chile
Iris Fontbona – Latin America’s richest woman, with a fortune estimated at US$28.8 billion. After her husband’s death, she became the head of the largest business empire in Chile and is successfully developing it.
According to Bloomberg, Iris’s capital grew by 18% in 2023. It consists of assets in several companies, including:
1. Antofagasta is one of the world’s largest copper producers. Fontbonne controls about 70% of the company.
2. Her share in the investment conglomerate Quiñenco is 83%.
3. Together with her children, she owns 84% of the shares in the management company Plava Laguna Hotel Group, which has its headquarters in Croatia.
After her husband died in 2005, Iris took over the company’s management. Her children supported the decision and, judging by the family’s growing income, have no regrets.
Love and business
Iris was born in 1942 in the Chilean city of Antofagasta, the centre of the country’s mining industry. During the industry’s heyday, the region attracted many foreigners who came to make money. Andronico Luksic Abaroa, a Croatian businessman and Iris’s future husband, had a similar goal. He studied in France and specialised in mining.
Widowed in the early 1960s, Andronico and his two sons travelled to Antofagasta. It was here that he met Iris, 16 years younger than him. In 1962, the couple had a daughter, Paola, who was the first of their three children. A few years later, the family moved to Santiago, where Abaroa set up his own business.
It is worth noting that Andronico was quite a public figure, as his status demanded. At the same time, Iris led a private life, remaining in the shadow of her husband. To this day, the press knows little about her. She rarely gives interviews and does not talk about anything other than business. But her eldest son, Abaroa, always speaks warmly of her not only as a talented businesswoman but also as a mother. Her warm relationship with her children is evidenced by the fact that it was she who became head of the family after her husband’s death.
Family business
Iris has the support of her sons, each in charge of a different area of the business. The businesswoman, in turn, controls the foundation’s board of directors, which manages all the companies in the empire. In addition to the companies in Chile, the family owns companies in the United States, Argentina, Canada, Uruguay, and Croatia.
According to Bloomberg, Antofagasta and Quiñenco are under the control of a number of Liechtenstein investment companies. This small principality is widely known as a tax haven for many large businesses.
