Almost 1,700 million euros of turnover and assets, profits of 100 million and about 7,000 employees. These are the big figures from Roemmers, the largest pharmaceutical company in Argentina, whose fiscal headquarters are in Spain, thousands of kilometers from its operations center in Buenos Aires.
But not in Madrid, the epicenter in recent years of a growing landing of great Latin American fortunes, but in Bilbao. An office building on Bilbao’s Gran Vía, 53, houses the registered office of a Spanish company with the name of a water bird, Cormorán de Bilbao SL, the holding company on which the entire Roemmers group hangs.
This century-old company, founded in 1921 by Alberto Roemmers, a German immigrant from the Rhineland, is one of the most important in its sector in Latin America and the first in Argentina: “Five of the ten best-selling medicines in the country belong to Roemmers: Lotrial, Optamox, Amoxidal, Sertal Compuesto and Losacor,” it says on its website, citing data from the specialized consulting firm IMS.
The Roemmers group created this Spanish holding company in 2011 to “consolidate its operations and achieve stronger and more effective administration” and “obtain synergy between all subsidiaries that, over time, would allow it to become a regional leader,” explains the report. of non-financial information from your latest accounts.
She looked for those “synergies” in Spain, a country where she has no business and where the richest woman in Argentina, the faceless billionaire Edith Rodríguez, has also woven part of the corporate web of her opaque oil company, Pluspetrol, to evade taxes. In the case of the Roemmers parent company, it enjoys the Basque regional regime and the advantages of foreign securities holding entities (ETVE). This tax incentive is used by several multinationals and Latin American fortunes such as the ultra-liberal Mexican magnate Ricardo Salinas.
The asset and sales figures of the Roemmers holding company have been growing very significantly, unrelated to the terrible economic situation in its country of origin.
The consolidated accounts for the year ended March 2023 that Cormorán de Bilbao has just submitted to the Mercantile Registry reflect a significant 21% increase in its assets, up to 1,640 million, and a 31% increase in its sales, up to a record of 1,669 million, double what the Spanish pharmaceutical company Rovi, listed on the Ibex 35, invoiced in 2023. It also doubles the sales of Almirall, which was part of the Spanish selective until 2022.
The consolidated profit of Cormorán de Bilbao was 99.7 million in its last fiscal year, almost double that of a year before, according to those accounts, accessible through Insight View.
With a staff of 6,890 employees (none in Spain and more than 2,000 in Argentina), it explains in its management report that it is the dominant company of a group that is “a leader in sales of medicines in the Argentine market and in other countries in Central and South America.” ”. Its main facilities and subsidiaries are in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Mexico.
This Spanish company has 69 subsidiaries in eleven Latin American countries. According to their individual accounts, dividend income from subsidiaries (exempt from taxes under the ETVE regime) more than doubled in 2023, up to 67.88 million. This more than offset the losses due to exchange differences, which were 6.35 million.
In addition to Argentina, Roemmers is especially strong in Mexico. There is the Siegfried group, which they bought in 1994 from a Swiss firm and is “the most prescribed laboratory in the country, with a share of 5.9% and a growth of 6.9%.”
In Mexico they hoped to “continue the double-digit growth trend of recent years,” despite the “high political risk” in the face of “the growing radicalization” of then-president López Obrador to “guarantee the continuity of his political project.” “It is expected that the ruling party will launch actions to weaken its opponents in the Executive, the electoral authorities and the judiciary, while exacerbating polarization.”
As explained in june The World Bank, after lending Roemmers more than 300 million dollars (most of it for projects in Mexico), the vast majority (98%) of the company has remained in the hands of two of the three heirs left by the founder’s son, Alberto WH Roemmers, died in 2022 at age 96.
Specifically, Pablo and Alberto Roemmers have 49% each. His brother Alejandro, the founder’s third living grandson, has only 2%, according to information from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank. Since 2018 alone, this institution of the multilateral organization has loaned Roemmers $451 million.
Opaque salaries
The accounts of Roemmers’ Spanish parent company include qualifications from its auditor, PwC, for not reporting the salaries of directors and senior managers, as required by Spanish law. Its president is the CEO of Roemmers, Arturo Macchiavello. On its board, along with Alberto Roemmers, there are several former members of that auditing and consulting giant in Bilbao.
The vice president of Cormorán de Bilbao SL is José Antonio Gil López, former partner of Audit and Transactions at PwC. Javier Domingo de Paz, another former member of the firm, is also a director. The latter is a member of the Basque industrial group Dominion, in which the Riberas, owners of Gestamp and one of the richest families in Spain, are shareholders.
In its accounts, Cormorán de Bilbao does not mention any tax litigation in Spain, something in which the late patriarch of the Roemmers had experience. The last one was resolved on October 23 by the Superior Court of Justice of Valencia (TSJV) against Mercurio Credit Advisors SL, a Spanish company with which the magnate channeled one of his passions, sailing.
The TSJV has confirmed a settlement of 132,000 euros from the Tax Agency for the Special Tax on Certain Means of Transport to that Spanish company after selling at the end of 2017 one of the boats it built, the “King Marine” TP52, belonging to a class of 52-foot racing yachts in which another sailing fanatic, the emeritus king Juan Carlos I, once cut his teeth.
The Treasury denied that refund because Roemmers’ company was not professionally dedicated to the resale of means of transportation and its purpose was not “an economic activity”, but rather “leisure or recreational, aimed at satisfying the company’s owner’s love for sports.” of sailing, participating in international competitions.”
The Tax Agency was struck by the “disproportion” between the meager income that the company declared in 2014, just over 184,000 euros, and expenses of almost 2.2 million, of which a part corresponded to invoices issued by its crew, which included the magnate, two of his sons and the well-known Argentine helmsman Guillermo Parada.
The late patriarch, a regular on the Forbes Argentina list, was known for his great discretion, which appears to have been inherited by the two heirs who control the vast majority of Roemmers. The best known, Alejandro, businessman, philanthropist and writer, received the Miguel Hernández Poetry Prize in Orihuela in 2009 and in 2011 published The return of the young princesequel to The little prince authorized by the heirs of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Closely linked to Spain, where he finished his pre-university studies, like his brothers (he attended COU at the private school of King Felipe VI, Santa María de los Rosales), a few years ago Alejandro Roemmers dominated the social gatherings after accusing his former partner, producer and ventriloquist José Luis Moreno of defrauding him of 16 million for the production of the series Glow & Darknessa sort of Game of Thrones Iberian based on the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.
The musical ‘Franciscus’ that Moreno produced with money from Roemmers and which it is estimated that he made a loss of 50 million to the tycoon. It premiered at the Euskalduna in 2018 and was a resounding failure: it only lasted four performances.
Very religious and personal friend of Pope Francis, Alejandro Roemmers has recently been linked to an alleged human trafficking network in Argentina (he has flatly denied the accusations). In 2016 it appeared in The Panama Papers with a company in the Virgin Islands to buy real estate in the United States.
The businessman is part of the Business Council of the International Foundation for Freedom (FIL), which is chaired by another famous former client of the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner who has become Spanish national Mario Vargas Llosa.
Based in Madrid, the FIL, of which Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s former economic guru, Javier Fernández-Lasquetty, is vice president, organized a tour of Argentina a few days ago by the ultraliberal economist Daniel Lacalle, with a visit to Javier Milei included. Both were photographed raising their thumbs in front of the enormous portrait given to the president by the ultra-liberal lobby that honored him in a casino in the capital a few months ago.
Alejandro Roemmers has declared himself hopeful with the coming to power of the extremist Argentine president: “He can inspire the change that the country needs,” he said in April to The Nation the businessman, who in 2018 made headlines for the lavish party to celebrate his 60th birthday that he organized in Marrakesh (Morocco) for 600 guests, at a cost of 6 million dollars.
Three days of partying, desert treks, horse shows and live musical performances by, among others, Ricky Martin. “The best birthday I have ever been to in my life,” wrote designer Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada on her Instagram account. The host did not want to receive gifts and asked his guests to donate the money to different social causes. But there was controversy, as the splendor coincided with the negotiations of the Argentine pharmaceutical industry with the Government of that time to review the contracts with the health insurance companies.
The last accounts of the Roemmers parent company were formulated months before the arrival to power of Milei, who has just completed a year in office. His chainsaw has been celebrated these days by self-proclaimed liberal Spanish media. Meanwhile, Nature has revealed the brain drain in the Argentine scientific ecosystem due to drastic cuts in public spending. Meanwhile, there is no evidence that the country’s main pharmaceutical company has moved its headquarters from Bilbao’s Gran Vía.
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