Sebastián Piñera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Sebastián Piñera | |
 |
|
| Born | December 1, 1949 Santiago, Chile, Chile |
|---|---|
| Residence | Santiago, Chile, Chile |
Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique (born December 1, 1949) is a Chilean businessman and politician. He is member of the center-right National Renewal (RN) party, a constituent of the Alliance for Chile coalition, and a former Senator of the Republic. He ran for President of Chile in the 2005 election, losing to Michelle Bachelet in the runoff election.
Contents |
[edit] Life and career
[edit] Personal life
Piñera was born in Santiago, Chile to Magdalena Echenique Rozas and José Piñera Carvallo, an engineer who worked for CORFO and was Chile's ambassador to Belgium and to the United Nations. He is the third man of a family of four brothers and two sisters: Guadalupe, José Piñera (a former Minister of Labour under Augusto Pinochet), Pablo, Sebastián, Miguel (a Chilean singer) and Magdalena. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from Chile's Catholic University as well as a Master's and Ph.D. in this subject from Harvard University. He is married to Cecilia Morel and has four children: Magdalena, Cecilia, Sebastián and Cristóbal.
[edit] Business life
Piñera owns 100% of Chilevision, a Chilean terrestrial television channel; 27% of Lan Airlines, 13% of Colo-Colo, a soccer club; and has important participation in companies like Quiñenco, Enersis, Soquimich, etc. He is constantly buying and selling shares in the Chilean stock market.
According to Forbes magazine, Piñera is a billionaire (his fortune is estimated at US$1.3 billion). His wealth is attributed in great part to his involvement in the introduction of credit cards to Chile in the late 1970s and his subsequent investments mainly in stock of LAN, a former state owned company that he bought in 1994, together with the Cueto family, while he was a senator and member of the Senate Finance Committee.[1]
On July 2007 Piñera was fined approximately US$680,000 by Chile's securities regulator (SVS) for insider trading of LAN Airlines stock in mid-2006. Piñera denied any wrongdoing, and argued that the whole process was part of a political attack to damage his image. Therefore, he did not appeal arguing the court process could take years and interfere with his intention to run again for president in late 2009.[2] Later that month he resigned from the boards of LAN and Quintec.
[edit] Political life
Piñera supported the "No" 1988 plebiscite against Augusto Pinochet. In 1989 he headed the presidential campaign of Hernán Büchi, a former finance minister of the Pinochet government. During the same election process, Piñera was elected as senator (1990-1998) and soon after joined the center-right National Renewal party.
On May 14, 2005 Piñera surprisingly announced his own candidacy for the 2005 presidential election. In the first round of the election, on December 11, Piñera obtained 25.4% of the vote, which placed him in second place. Since no candidate achieved an absolute majority, a runoff election was held on January 15, 2006, between Piñera and Michelle Bachelet of the governing coalition. Bachelet won the presidency with over 53% of the vote.
[edit] References
- ^ "The World's Billionaires" , accessed on March 09, 2008
- ^ "LAN Holder Fined for Insider Trading" Associated Press, accessed on July 11, 2007
