| Work Detail |
This is Martín Maccarone, CEO of Coinsa
The minister incorporated him as coordinating secretary of Infrastructure
His company is one of the main construction companies of shopping malls
Who is the construction businessman that Caputo brought in to manage public works Luis Caputo and Javier Milei.
Luis Caputo finished designing the new organizational chart of the Ministry of Economy with the appointment of Martín Maccarone as its coordinating secretary for Infrastructure. For a few weeks now, this construction businessman has been in charge of managing strategic areas such as the Secretariat of Public Works (Luis Giovine), Transportation (Franco Mogetta) and Habitat and Housing (Rodrigo Aybar).
The official inherited the secretariats of the former Minister of Infrastructure, Guillermo Ferraro, who was ousted by Caputo and the former Chief of Cabinet, Nicolás Posse, last January. And thus became the third coordinating secretary, along with the Minister of Industry, Juan Pazo, and the former CEO of YPF, Daniel González, for Energy. "Maccarone reduces direct reports to the minister that took up too much of his time," confirmed the Ministry of Economy.
Maccarone is an industrial engineer from ITBA, has a masters degree in finance from UCEMA and worked for a year at Merrill Lynch. Then, in 2001, he went on to direct Coinsa, the successor to Grupo Maccarone SA, which was directed by Nicolás Maccarone. The company built Paseo Gigena opposite the Hipódromo de la Ciudad, Norcenter, Showcenter Haedo, Shopping Soleil and Patio Bullrich.
The businessman got his job with the support of the nephew of the Minister of Economy and advisor to the President, the ever-present Santiago Caputo. He also knows the minister from the time when he was the director of the Axis Inversiones fund before entering public service and rented offices in a building on Godoy Cruz Street, in the Palermo neighborhood, belonging to Coinsa.
Anker Latin America, the consulting firm that Caputo closed before taking over as head of the Ministry of Economy, organized the Dorrego and Libertador trust for the construction of Paseo Gigena for a value of up to US$ 60 million. The real estate development group BSD Investments also participated, which shares with Coinsa the Zeta project, an exclusive 14-story tower in Barrancas de Belgrano designed by the ODA Architecture studio of New York.
Tension with governors and businessmen
The official, whose company lowered its profile since it changed its name, is in charge of the new "flexible" public works scheme that was regulated in August. The objective is to renegotiate or cancel contracts executed up to 80% that were signed before December 10, 2023. Today, there are 1,394 projects in progress, of which the provinces must take charge of 799 transferred works.
There are already 20 governors who have signed this type of agreement, with the exception of the City, the Province of Buenos Aires, La Pampa and Formosa, districts that maintain tensions with the ruling party. The transfer allows the government to transfer responsibility for the works and to a large extent sustain the chainsaw. In August, the expenditure that fell the most was capital transfers to provinces (-96%, in real terms).
As for the private sector, the Government is seeking to replicate the Chilean public-private partnership (PPP) model and for companies to fill the void left by the national State. But businessmen believe that investment will remain stagnant with a country risk of over 1,000 points and rising costs in dollars. "We dont know anything about Maccarone, we are waiting for him to receive us," they said at the Chamber of Construction (Camarco).
Despite official expectations that the economy will recover, construction fell 26.4% year-on-year in August and has accumulated a decrease of 30.3%. The sector interrupted the four-month recovery it had shown against the previous month and fell 2.9% in August. As for employment, activity registered 383,509 jobs in July, a fall of 17.3% year-on-year. Thus, 60,800 jobs have been lost since November, half of the 130,000 layoffs recorded by Camarco.
Although the number of deeds in CABA exceeded 5,000 in August and the surface area authorized by building permits is close to recent levels in 176 municipalities, specialists see that private construction continues to be complicated by the rising cost of square meters in dollars and that what continues are the large-scale projects already started, which generally cannot be stopped.
"Costs in dollars have skyrocketed, few new projects are starting with the dollar flat. A couple of months ago, permits were doing well, but the increase in costs is going to hit. We estimate that costs in dollars are 40% above the historical peak of 2017," explained Germán Gómez Picasso, director of Reporte Inmobiliario. |
