Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner sets his sights on Clarin, sources say

Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner sets his sights on Clarin, sources say
By Pablo Rosendo Gonzalez, Buenos Aires

Published: June 26 2008 14:17 | Last updated: June 26 2008 14:17

Former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner has set his sights on confronting Grupo Clarin and is taking steps to rein in the most powerful media group in Argentina, several sources told Debtwire.

“I’ve taken on the military, the Church and the IMF. Now its time for Clarin,” a politician that regularly speaks with the former president claimed he heard him say. Another source close to the former president’s inner circle confirmed hearing the same phrase and said that the former president will likely try to find a local private equity group to buy a stake in the company.

Kirchner adopted a similar tack in previous cases involving strategic industries, such as Transener and YPF, as previously reported by this news service. Among its many media holdings, Clarin owns Multicanal and a stake in Cablevision, two cable television companies that have over 80% market share in some major markets like the City of Buenos Aires. Clarin’s 60% stakes in the cable TV companies are the media group’s main source of income.

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A few weeks later, Gabriel Mariotto, the newly appointed head of Argentina’s media regulatory body, announced an initiative to reform the country’s broadcasting law. The government, led by Kirchner’s wife now-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, subsequently communicated that the revised law would focus on dissolving monopolies, such as Clarin’s, leveraging the Peronist party’s majority voting power in Congress. Nestor Kirchner is currently the president of the Peronist party.

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