When Argentinian President Alberto Fernández took office in December 2019, he was aware of what he was getting himself into. GDP dropping 2.2 percent, yearly inflation at 53.8 percent, urban poverty reaching 15 million, and billions upon billions of foreign debt. These matters have caused some headaches to the new administration, but only now has Mr. Fernández had to deal with the first economic hot potato unrelated to any of his predecessors: the expropriation of Argentina’s major grain exporter Vicentin.
As a part of Argentina’s most profitable sector — which accounts for 10 percent of the country’s GDP and 60 percent of all exports, according to the Agricultural Foundation for the Development of Argentina (FADA) — Vicentin declared bankruptcy in December last year, with a total debt of USD 1.4 billion to more than 2,600 creditors.
Besides employing almost 1,300 people, the company is seen as a leader of Argentina’s soy industry and the national government does not want to be judged as having a hand in its collapse. After being attacked by the opposition, President Fernández said the plan of expropriating Vicentin was an “exception” and that people had to leave ideological matters aside, seeing the government wasn’t planning on saving “a profitable company, but a bankrupt...
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