Marcelo Fabio Figoli he discovered the business world thanks to political activism. It was in the ’80s when he, from the radical committee of Floresta, organized a concert with Sandra Mihanovich that went more or less well. He was barely 18 years old. The proceeds went to do politics in the Floresta neighborhood. In those years, the democratic fervor of Alfonsinism It made him interested in politics and he even had a position in the intervention of the social work of the gastronomic union. In other words, from his early youth he began to learn the art of relating to power.
In recent years expanded as a media entrepreneurwith a particularity: syour radios are on one side and the other of the political rift that crosses Argentina. is dDream of Radio Rivadaviawhere there is a strong programming anti K and also has the AM The 990 (Ex Esplendid), which has drivers more officialistas. He defines himself plural, although his radios are far from it. In recent weeks your name was associated with Grupo América because, until the end of December, he was negotiating with Daniel Vila the purchase of 50% of the group. In the end Villa repented and the operation did not materialize. Behind that purchase, one of the investors was going to be Adrián and Darío Werthein, the owners of DirecTV Argentina. Between Fígoli and the Werthein there is already a small alliance in D Sports Radio, DirecTV’s sports FM, which is broadcast on the 103.1 frequency that is in the hands of Fígoli.
This month, the entrepreneur advanced with the purchase of Canal 7 de Neuquén, one of Telefe’s repeaters, which are being sold throughout the country. In recent weeks he has been negotiating to add as investors the media businessman from Mar del Plata, Raúl Pérez and Gustavo “Turco” Elías, owner of the newspaper La Nueva Provincia from Mar del Plata.
The purchase of Channel 7 in Neuquén, from a business and political point of view, is strategic because it is a medium that is of interest to the Neuquén Popular Movement, the provincial government party, and also to the businessmen who operate in Vaca Muerta. That is to say that Figoli remains as social interlocutor between the investors of Vaca Muerta and the Government. When it comes to investing, politics is always a variable that is put on the table.
Millions
Fígoli discovered that he had a knack for business in 1985, at the age of 19. Together with his co-religionists from the Floresta committee, they organized a rock recital at the stadium works that was a success. After that experience, he spoke with his political reference, Quique Benedetti, to ask her permission to work on his behalf, organizing events. At that time, with a certain naivety, he considered it unfair to take advantage of the contacts he had made through his militancy. He believed them a UCR asset. Over time he was losing those qualms.
Within a few years I already met David Lebon, Los Enanitos Verdes, Andrés Calamaro and Soda Stereo. The first recital that she organized was a date in Mar de Ajó for Soda. But this was an absolute public failure. That blow served as experience for him to anticipate economic losses in the future. From there, his path went uphill.
The son of immigrant Italians, with business skills, he grew in contacts and money. He organized shows by famous bands: Sumo, Redonditos de Ricota, Memphis la Blusera, Virus, Abuelos de la Nada, Vox Dei and Mercedes Sosa. Of some, he even became his manager. This is how he went through the 90s with his Fénix brand, a reference in musical shows. In those years he lived with other players in the entertainment market with whom he would later end up estranged, such as Daniel Grinbank or Mario Pergolini. Also, during the Menem period, he met one of his most important partners: Diego Finkelsteinwhom he added to Fénix Entertainment Group.
“I met Finkelstein by chance sometime in 1999, because we did a very important concert with Luciano Pavarotti. a great friend, Sergio Grofskopf, who sponsored me with the Alto Palermo shopping malls, told me to add to this Pavarotti event a family that I love very much, the Wertheins, because they were selling the insurance company La Caja to the Italian group Generali, they were merging. We did a wonderful concert with Pavarotti on the Boca pitch with the black (Mercedes) Sosa, sponsored by Generali, La Caja and Alto Palermo. That day they introduced me to Diego Finkelstein, whom I had met because he was dating the daughter of alfredo coto, and at some event, that I went to sell to Coto, he came as a future son-in-law, or worked there, and I met him. He wanted to get into the business and we finished doing the Pavarotti thing and we became partners”, recalls Fígoli.
With Finkelstein, in 2012, they joined the adventure of buying the part of La Rural that belonged to Francisco De Narváez. The Rural fairgrounds were 50% owned by Sociedad Rural and 50% owned by De Narváez. When they found out that De Narváez wanted to sell, they went looking for a group to finance them. There the brothers appear Adrian and Dario Werthein as potential partners to buy De Narváez’s share. At the last minute, the Wertheins gave up on the operation and had to go out and find another partner to put up the money. This is where the company Irsa, by Eduardo Elsztain, comes into play.
“It seems to me that Irsa arose by chance because Diego (Finkelstein) had some kind of relationship, I don’t know if through the temple, with one of the Elsztain family, and that’s where he made contact,” says Fígoli. In the end, the operation was closed with the creation of the Ogden company, of which Irsa had 50% and Grupo Fénix (Figoli-Finkelstein), the other half. After a while, the relationship between Figoli and Finkelstein began to deteriorate. Fights, arguments, mistrust. It was no longer the same and coexistence had worn down to the point of intolerance, so Fígoli decided to agree to a way out, since the friendship with Elsztain belonged to Finkelstein. “We separated after 15 years, the relationship deteriorated. We make a lot of money, very good togetherand then at one point the relationship deteriorated, and well… We weren’t going to be more partners, I didn’t leave, but I stayed with Fénix”, affirms Fígoli.
At the end of January 2016, they paid 66.5 million pesos, as reported by IRSA to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for listing on the New York Stock Exchange. In those years, the value of the dollar was around 14 pesos, so it was a little less than 5 million dollars. With that money in the bank, He spoke with the Kirchner businessman Sergio Szpolski and bought him the Rock and Pop and the AM Splendid 990.
Figoli’s intention was to continue boosting your music show business, now adding an emblematic rock brand like the FM founded by Daniel Grinbank and Mario Pergolini. But buying a medium would bring other benefits, which would later become part of a business model: exploiting the crack.
During the macrismo it made its greatest expansion. In 2018 it added Radio Colonia, FM Blue in partnership with Grupo América and also the NA news agency. In 2019, he appeared in the court that was carrying out the bankruptcy of Radio Rivadavia and presented a business plan to keep it going. The historic radio of the Cetrá had a very difficult debt to face with Sadaic and also with the AFIP. Fígoli, who through his activity knew the unions that weigh in the world of music and radio, was able to reach an arrangement to face that debt and also agree to a moratorium from the AFIP. A peculiarity of the case was that the bankruptcy of the radio had been declared and then it was retracted to allow the entry of Figoli, who, in addition to the frequencies, kept the building on Arenales and Pueyrredón streets, where the station operated. The Cetrá family kept the land where the antenna was mounted in Villa Tesei, now projected to build a private neighborhood. they all won.
The programming of Radio Rivadavia became an emblem of anti-K journalism, where feeding the crack is part of the business. He, more elegantly, calls it “building an audience.” In parallel, he also won a tender to operate the Ecopark of the City of Buenos Aires, in the heart of the Palermo neighborhood, where the zoo used to function.
Peronism
During the presidency of Alberto Fernández, he was left with another business that was in decline, Parque de la Costa, located in the town of Tigre, land of massismo. In March 2021, in an act with the Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof and the then President of the Chamber of Deputies, Sergio Massa, the purchase of Parque de la Costaanother business in crisis and that the pandemic finished detonating.
After a negotiation with the Comercial Del Plata company, an agreement was reached to acquire the share package for 1 peso and settle the debt of about 12 million dollars. The voices of the market maintain that the money for the operation would have been lent by the Del Plata Commercial Society itself and once inside the company, Figoli settled the debt with his creditors. Before that, both the province and the municipality of Tigre, headed by Julio Zamora, granted him tax benefits that helped the business perform better. It was a three-way game: Figoli was doing politics a favor; the Government avoided a union dispute over the layoffs and the employer was left with a company for little money.
His latest investment is Grupo Vía, a company specialized in advertising on public roads. This is another business that is tied to politics, but that also serves to promote his musical shows. Two important players in this sector are relevant Peronists in the Buenos Aires ecosystem: Enrique “Pepe” Albistur and the trade unionist Víctor Santa María, also a fan of media buying.
A political relationship that Fígoli built a long time ago is with Mauricio Macri, whom he has known since the ’90s when he did shows on the Boca pitch and Macri presided over the club. Bringing international artists gave him power since important people asked him for tickets to go to the VIP for free to meet his favorite artists.
During the government of Cristina Kirchner began to receive sponsors also from politics that he liked to promote himself in recitals. That was her first contact with the official guideline. The city of Buenos Aires also began to advertise her shows. This is how he learned to build audiences and put together à la carte recitals for politics.
Figoli has a bad reputation in the media universe and also in the world of entertainment. Some of his colleagues resist him. He quarreled with Grinbank, according to entertainment sources, and the contempt is mutual; The same with Mario Pergolini and with his former partner Finkelstein, the esteem also ended. He is a businessman who entered the world of media at full speed and that it grew in number of audiences in a few years. His forte is radio, although now he wants to set foot on television. Yotried to buy America TV and NET TV, though he couldn’t make it. For now, it will have to settle for only one channel in Patagonia and an agreement with the UOCRA union to exploit its television signal. He wants more. And politics, both from the ruling party and from the opposition, is willing to help him. His way of building audiences serves the parties because Fígoli is everyone’s partner.
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