An initial 2011 investment by its holding company Quinenco SA in Chilean shipping firm Compania Sud Americana de Vapores SA, or CSAV, was met with skepticism from analysts and investors after it initially posted steep losses. The family stepped in to put up more than half of a $1.2 billion capital raise in 2012, and executives had to negotiate waivers with banks and bondholders to spin off its tugboat fleet.
“Some analysts described it as the worst investment in the group’s history,” Chairman Andronico Mariano Luksic Craig wrote in Quinenco’s 2022 annual report. “The first years were, in effect, quite hard. Successive capital increases and years of losses, as well as a decade without dividends, did not diminish our conviction that long-term results would be obtained. And so they were.”
CSAV took in $5.6 billion of profit last year, mostly from its stake in the shipping giant. Quinenco’s portion of those earnings represented more than 90% of its net income in the period and 81% of dividends, the annual report shows. They join other global shipping barons — from the Saades to Gianluigi Aponte — who benefited from expansion and high shipping rates during the pandemic. That wealth is now providing a cushion as rates fall from their highs and a glut of new ships rolls off production lines.