Bemberg, Otto (1827–1895)

Otto Bemberg (b. 1827; d. 1895), German-born businessman in Argentina. Bemberg arrived in Buenos Aires in the 1850s and established a prosperous import-export business. He married the daughter of the influential Senator Mariano Ocampo and served as Argentine consul in Paris during the War of the Triple Alliance (1865–1870). He became involved in the arms trade with Argentina, and following his return to Buenos Aires, he became an agent for many important French industrial companies, especially the Schneider firm, which exported railway and other heavy equipment to the Río de la Plata.

With offices in Buenos Aires and Paris, Bemberg began to specialize in financial dealings, and he was the agent for a large number of Argentine provincial loans issued on the Paris Stock Exchange in the 1880s. He was an agent to various French banks and helped arrange financing for a French-owned railway in Argentina and for the construction of the port works in Rosario.

In 1888 Bemberg established the Quilmes Beer Company, long the largest brewery in Argentina, which remains owned by the Bemberg family. The brewery expanded production spectacularly between 1900 and 1925 and also bought competing breweries to establish its dominance. The company was nationalized by the government of Juan D. Perón in 1947 and was returned to the Bemberg family in 1955.

See alsoGermans in Latin Americaxml .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Luis Torres, Algunas maneras de vender patria (Buenos Aires, 1973).

                                 Carlos Marichal