Venezuela's Polar Says Chavez's Speculation, Hoarding Charges Are `Absurd'
Venezuela’s Empresas Polar SA, the country’s largest food producer, called government charges that it’s hoarding products and speculating on prices “absurd” and ”senseless.”
Polar factories are working at maximum capacity and “every kilo” it produces is supervised by the state, making such practices impossible, the company said today in a statement sent by e-mail.
The “arbitrary” government seizure last week of 114 tons of food from Polar warehouses in Barquisimeto, a city in Lara state, represents 0.1 percent of the company’s monthly nationwide output of 100,000 tons, the statement said.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said yesterday that the government may “go after” Polar for hoarding and that he will request an investigation of the company after the Barquisimeto confiscation.
Polar President Lorenzo Mendoza, whose family’s fortune surged to $3.5 billion from $2 billion last year, has fended off earlier threats by Chavez to nationalize his food conglomerate.
Mendoza, one of two Venezuelan billionaires, climbed to the world’s 258th wealthiest person from 334th in 2009, according to Forbes magazine’s billionaires list released in March. He managed to increase his wealth last year even as the South American country sank into its first recession since 2003, with the economy shrinking 3.3 percent.
Nationalization Bid
Chavez, 55, earlier this year moved to take Mendoza’s minority stake in Cadena de Tiendas Venezolanas SA. The company, majority-owned by France’s Casino Guichard Perrachon SA and including Colombia’s Almacenes Exito SA as another minority owner, controlled six Exito retail stores in Venezuela and 35 supermarkets.
Chavez threatened to nationalize Polar in 2009 after taking over a rice plant for three months, saying it failed to comply with government production quotas.
Chavez has nationalized parts of the country’s oil, cement, metals and utilities industries as he extends the role of the state in the economy to create what he calls “21st century socialism.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jose Orozco in Caracas at jorozco8@bloomberg.net
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