Manuel Parody’s management as head of the Port Society of Buenaventura left a bad taste among the shareholders, not only the minority ones. A bad atmosphere that forced the family decision to sell its 20% stake in the port company, where they entered in 2013 and whose valuation has been headed by former Finance Minister Rudolf Hommes and his firm Advisor Capital, who in turn is in charge of the search for a buyer, which will be international.
Hommes has been the Parody’s representative in the Board of Directors of the Sociedad Portuaria, which is why he knows the business well. One of the most attractive potential buyers is Qatar Ports, a government company created in 2009, with its main terminals in Doha and interests in different ports on the Pacific.
The Parody family wants to pick up and focus its investments in the Caribbean ports, Barranquilla and Cartagena where they are big players and have the container business that has allowed them to amass an important fortune. Manuel Parody is the executive head of the Parody Group of which the ex-minister Gina is a partner as a family member, but has never had a direct intervention.
However, it was precisely the possible conflict of interest with this family business and the decisions in the Santos government, when she was minister, regarding the port in Gamarra on the Magdalena River, which ended up causing judicial and disciplinary difficulties for Gina Parody, who now lives dedicated to writing in New York.
