The president of Grupo Inversiones Mundial SA (Grupo Imsa), Andrés Bernal Correa; and the former Minister of Commerce, María Ximena Lombana became the new voices of the banker Jaime Gilinski in the board of directors of Sura.
Both names are added to that of Ángela María Tafur, who since June 13 has been in the administrative entity of the financial holding company as an equity member, representing Gilinski.
The arrival of Bernal and Lombana took place yesterday, after being chosen in an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting, the fourth in less than seven months to modify the meeting, which was convened by the tax auditing firm, Ernst & Young Audit, at the request of JGDB Holding, Nugil and Juan Pablo Quintero.
The businessman and the former minister relieve Gabriel Gilinski, Jaime’s son, and José Luis Suárez, who had been elected in another extraordinary assembly that took place on June 22.
After yesterday’s session, in addition to the three records of the Gilinski family, of the Sura board of directors for the period October 2022 to March 2024, Luis Javier Zuluaga Palacio, Pablo Londoño Mejía, Sebastián Orejuela Martínez and Luis Santiago Cuartas Tamayo are also part , who were proposed by Grupo Argos, a company that owns 27.86% of the shares of Sura.
The former minister
Although the board of the Sura board maintains four members who were nominated by the so-called GEA and three from Gilinski, yesterday the choice of former minister Lombana as an independent member of the Sura board was striking, after the nomination of JGDB Holding.
Faced with this move, there were those who recalled that at the beginning of March this year, still as head of the Trade portfolio, Lombana announced the start of negotiations to achieve a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United Arab Emirates, from where they are precisely the investment partners of the Gilinskis, that is, those who have provided the resources to launch the offers for Sura, Nutresa and Argos, and from where the money for the fourth OPA for Nutresa would be originating (see X-ray).
Added to the foregoing is the fact that in December 2021 Lombana took possession of the current Superintendent of Companies, Billy Escobar Pérez, an entity that in August asked the Financial Superintendence to investigate whether a business conglomerate was formed between Sura, Argos and Nutresa, and if there is any violation of current regulations.
Mrs. Lombana is also identified or associated with her as a member of the Cambio Radical political party, whose visible head Germán Vargas Lleras has written some columns against the so-called GEA and its administrators in recent weeks.
old acquaintance
Bernal’s nomination to Sura’s board, initially by JGDB Holding, and at the last minute by Nugil, is considered a great surprise, since he was for several years one of the key players in the company from Antioquia.
A decade ago he was in charge of one of Sura’s most important businesses, the purchase from ING of its pension and insurance assets in Colombia, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Uruguay, in a transaction that took several months and cost around $7. trillions.
His career in the so-called parent company of Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (GEA) also highlights his performance as manager of Corporate Investments, manager of Corporate Finance, head of Projects and analyst of Financial Engineering and Credit analyst at Corfinsura (today Bancolombia).
Likewise, he was Vice President of Finance and Investments of Grupo Sura and held the Vice Presidency of Finance and Strategy of Sura Asset Management. After learning about his nomination for the Sura board, this newspaper tried to obtain some considerations from Bernal in this regard, but he refrained from making any comment.
“If anyone knows Sura’s balance sheets better than many of the company’s current administrators, it is Bernal. He is brilliant and if ten years ago he led the ING business, more recently he spun off the Orbis Group and sold Pintuco to investors from the Netherlands”, former co-workers mentioned.
Another aspect that became clear after yesterday’s meeting is that Nugil, who appeared as an indirect shareholder of Sura, due to his shareholding in Nutresa (31.09%), really has a direct participation, for the moment not specified, since he applied an iron and put Bernal on the company’s board.
Before ending the meeting, a spokesman for the Sura employees, Diego Patiño, read a statement raising his concerns about the recurring changes in the company’s board, and questioning the interest of the Gilinskis, who since November of the previous year have been trying to become control of the GEA companies.