Julio Saguier, majority shareholder of La Nación SA, sat at one end of the long table at the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting. On the other, Esmeralda Miter -daughter of Barlomé Luis Mitre-, who since the death of her father in 2020 has been fighting to recover the shares that she and her brothers inherited in the company and which, according to her, would have been stolen through a ” scam” perpetrated by his Saguier cousins and his father’s former lawyers, the Gagliardo family.
On Thursday, August 24, for the first time, the Justice authorized his presence at the Annual Meeting of shareholders of the media company and the dispute reached its climax. The crack was raised and the fight, which already has its legal derivations, had a strong round, which, moreover, will not be the last. “Here I am and I go for everything,” says Miter to NOTICIAS.
After several days of calling for silence and seclusion due to the stress caused by the situation, Miter received this medium to explain what his feelings were when he was able to join the assembly after three years of judicial litigation, how was that moment and what will be the steps to follow and the future of the cause in Justice.
Struggle. “The night before the assembly I couldn’t even sleep. I barely slept three hours, but my nerves went away until I was finally able to enter the newspaper and there, yes, at the meeting, the climate changed”, details Miter. Esmeralda, assisted by lawyers Daniel Llermanos and Gabriel Len, has been denouncing that the children of the historic director of La Nación, Bartolomé Mitre, and a sister of Bartolomé, were stripped of the group’s shares. The heirs point to whoever was empowered by his father, Mariano Gagliardo, and his son, his namesake, who was executor of the succession.
The Gagliardos allied themselves with the unknown Marquis Federico Spinola, who appears as the owner of more than 20 percent of La Nación, although he was never in Argentina, much less was he present at the newspaper’s facilities and, of course, never participated. of a shareholders’ meeting (see box).
As part of this maneuver, Esmeralda and two of her brothers, who are accompanying her in the legal battle, involve their cousins, the Saguier family, who currently manage the company. “The complainant is me, but ‘Bartolo’ and Rosario accompany me. Dolores gave us her shares and decided not to participate, and Nequi and my brother Santos too, ”she explains.
They claim to be the legitimate heirs of 25 percent of the company’s shares through the company KMB SA (by Kinucha, sister of Bartolomé Mitre, the surname Miter and Bartolomé himself), the same as the mysterious Marquis resident in Monaco. says to have The General Inspection of Justice (IGJ) issued a favorable opinion to Esmeralda and her brothers. “In the IGJ there is no shell company worth and they said that there is no evidence that these shares have been acquired by anyone. They were always my father’s until his death, ”explains Miter.
Not only the IGJ investigates this situation. Room D of the Commercial Chamber mentioned that there are suspicions of money laundering. Therefore, they instructed the Financial Information Unit (FIU) to intervene in the case and carry out “the pertinent proceedings and investigations.” According to what NEWS learned, there was a file in the UIF that investigated this situation a few years ago, however, later the cause was stopped being investigated.
In her capacity as a shareholder endorsed by Justice, then, Esmeralda attended the assembly, a meeting in which the climate was tense. “I admit that I screamed and told my cousin that he was a defector. But the clearest thing is that I said that with my arrival they ran out of hooliganism. With my father they could because the last fifteen years of his life he had a very severe disease, but with me that ends, ”explains Esmeralda about the meeting that included shouting and outbursts.
But, beyond the climate, the truth is that his presence in the assembly had another objective. “The other shareholders opened their eyes when I spoke because they didn’t know anything about all this. And now they begin to know other things, ”he explains and adds that“ we contest everything ”. That “everything” goes from the presence of the alleged KMB lawyer, representing the supposedly flawed shares that the Marquis Spinola claims to have, to the balance that had to be approved in the assembly. “Since it was not done in accordance with the law, everything that emerges from that balance such as fees and dividends to be paid was challenged,” explains lawyer Len. NEWS communicated with La Nación, although the media group did not make statements.
In addition, as he had anticipated to this medium when he began this crusade more than three years ago, Miter will carry out an audit to find out in detail all the movements of the company. “The company was asked to do so and since they did not take it into account, we are going to demand it in court,” he explains.
Vocation.The shares that belong, according to the IGJ, to the heirs of Bartolomé Mitre, would have brought Esmeralda dividend income of close to 4 million dollars. However, she explains that there is something that goes beyond money and that it is the legacy that her father left her. “When I was at the assembly I kept thinking ‘Dad, here’s what you wanted,’” she says.
It is that, according to details, before his father died, he confessed to him that he was still the true owner of the company and even “paid taxes until the last day of his life.” And although he did not impose it on her as an obligation, she felt that it awakened a vocation in her.
To such an extent that Esmeralda already envisions changes within the historic family business. “In the future I would like my brother to be the director of the newspaper. Because his name is Bartholomew, because that’s how my father wanted it and he says so in the statute. But I, as part of the board of directors, would like to intervene in an audit role, providing clarity to the operation of the company”.
Miter knows that the crusade she is carrying out can partially damage the image of the historic newspaper and exposes insiders that do not usually come to light, but she is confident that, with the judicial guarantee and her joining the board, things within the multimedia they will be able to change “I see the newspaper and I am ashamed. It became a lampoon,” she explains.
After three years of litigation, Esmeralda fulfilled the family wish that the Miter family return to the historic family environment. She says that she goes for everything and her first presence at the annual shareholders’ meeting was proof of this. The fight is just beginning.
by RN
