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ENTREPRENEUR: EDUARDO ELSZTAIN (int'l edition)Eduardo Elsztain, a third-generation Argentine property developer, has a bargain hunter's eye and a long view of the opportunities created by Latin America's new economic model. Those talents have attracted backers willing to invest for the long term despite Argentina's ups and downs. In 1991, seeing that depressed Argentine property values would rise swiftly with the end of hyperinflation, Elsztain got George Soros to back him in buying control of real estate company Inversiones y Representaciones (IRSA). Since then, Elsztain, 38, has assembled $1 billion worth of properties under IRSA management. His projects, including a $400 million plan to build a waterfront financial center, are changing the face of Buenos Aires. And an agricultural real estate company, Cresud, which IRSA and Soros bought in 1994, has become Argentina's No.1 rural landowner and cattle raiser. IRSA, in which Elsztain owns less than 5%, is buffered against the global credit crunch by partners like Soros, who owns 17%. Last December, despite the Asian meltdown, IRSA raised $236 million by issuing new shares, 90% of them bought by existing shareholders.
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Updated Oct. 15, 1998 by bwwebmaster
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