Steve Herrick

Chapter 5 The takeover The Bauen began its history as a recovered business March 21, 2003, a year and almost three months after its closure. Its workers had been left on the street in the middle of Argentina’s biggest economic crisis in decades, a crisis that was also social and political, and the end did not seem to be anywhere in sight. The year 2002 had been convulsive: mobilizations every day, exponential growth of the picket movement and neighborhood assemblies,… Read More »BAUEN, day 35

Iurchovich’s companies According to an investigation by journalist Guillermo Berasategui, the Iurcovich group is composed of almost 30 firms, several of which are simply name changes (changes to legal names) of existing firms, to facilitate certain evasive or fraudulent maneuvers. The flagship company is the Bauen hotel. Original group businesses: – Polytechnics (hospitality supplies)– Industrial Maintenance and Services Company (new name of Polytechnics) Hotel Bauen and derived or connected businesses: – Bauen SA– Bauen SACIC– Bauen SRL (which operated the… Read More »BAUEN, day 34

Solari Félix Santiago Solari Morello doesn’t have anything to do with the Solari family (except perhaps his anti-communism and his sympathy for the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet),1 prominent members of the bourgeoisie of Chile. Together with the Cúneo and Del Río families.2 they control the ownership of the chain of Falabella businesses, which arrived in Argentina in 1993. It is probable that this happy coincidence of last name and nationality did not awaken suspicions in anyone who learned that, four… Read More »BAUEN, day 33

In spite of all the indications of the general state of the country and of the accelerated decline of the business, the workers were left in a state of profound helplessness and a certain bewilderment by the loss of their jobs. “They were taking out comforters, curtains, beds, etc., lots of things, and we were saying,”what are we going to do?” We can’t do anything. We can only go to the Trustee and tell him not to let them take… Read More »BAUEN, day 32

Rodríguez Saá (the Peronista governor of the province of San Luis, who also learned how to weave alliances in the BAUEN around the year 2000), momentarily in charge of the presidency, declared that the country had entered into default with international credit organizations the 23rd of December. A short time later, he, in turn, left the government, in the rapid and chaotic succession of five presidents, culminating in the inauguration of Eduardo Duhalde, who had lost the elections of 1999… Read More »BAUEN, day 31

The decline of the Bauen paralleled the decline of the country. The year 2001 was full of disastrous measures, starting with the ruinous business of the “Megaswap” of external debt, negotiated by (among others) Federico Sturzenegger, president of the Central Bank fifteen years later with Mauricio Macri. There was also the brutal attempt at adjustment in education that marked the brief tenure of Ricardo López Murphy in the Ministry of Economics, which was repudiated by enormous mobilizations of students and… Read More »BAUEN, day 30

The Bauen closes its doors The Bauen managed by Solari reached a crisis, and Iurcovich himself forced him to present a call of creditors (the first step in the mechanism in the Bankruptcy Law to resolve business insolvencies). A lien was placed by judge Rodolfo Herrera of the National Court on Civil and Commercial Affairs, no. 3, Sec. 5, which took 20% of the hotel’s earnings. That put a financial chokehold on Solari, depriving him of the cash he needed… Read More »BAUEN, day 29

For workers, the change in boss was a wake-up call that marked the beginning of the end. In María Eva’s words: In ‘97, it was reported to us that this part was going to be sold, that the Bauen Tower was going to be divided from the Bauen Suite.1 They offered us severance money that was far less than what we were due. I said that I was going to think about it, and they answered me that I had… Read More »BAUEN, day 28

The sale to Solari Frequent changes to the registered name were a lead-up to the sale of the hotel to a Chilean businessman named Solari. It was the end of an ever-more obvious decline, and coincided with the collapse of Buenos Aires as hotel showcase, as another product of the economic policy that was sinking into recession and making the city very expensive in dollars for tourists. Competition from big international chains that were starting to show up in the… Read More »BAUEN, day 27

At the beginning of the ‘90s, the hotel started to see changes: the business “outfitted the fourth floor of the hotel with offices for rent, to attract Chilean executives coming to do business. And the auditoriums of the hotel were transformed into the site of political meetings of every stripe.”1 The Iurcoviches’ Bauen was, according to researcher Alberto Bonnet,2 one of the places where Menem materialized his frivilous and consumerist ideology: “The nocturnal scenes of meetings in the fashionable nightclubs… Read More »BAUEN, day 26